And speaking of [DELETED-lotteries-DELETED] tax breaks for the smart [1] …
In 1992, a group of Australian investors—led by math whiz Stephan Mandel decided they could literally buy the $27 million jackpot in the Virginia state lottery. Racing against the clock, they bought 5.6 million of a total 7.1 million possible combinations.
The Australians walked away with the only winning ticket—and $27 million.
“Big lotto jackpot not what it seems [2]”
Actually, I'm surprised this hasn't happened more often (or maybe it does and is underreported). In our own little lovely state of Florida [3], our little state lottery [4] has a 22,957,480:1 odds of winning, so it would seem that somebody would try it, once the pot has grown to, maybe, three times that amount, which does happen, [5] to make it profitable, if maybe a bit logistically daunting.
I would also expect that the Australians probably did a bit better than the $27 million, because lesser combinations (like 5 out of 6) also pay out.
[2] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
[3] https://boston.conman.org/
[4] http://www.flalottery.com/
[5] http://www.flalottery.com/inet/downloads/jackpotestimates.pdf