Mega Millions: 3 important tips for your office pool

More money, more problems: That’s one of the pitfalls of entering the now record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot, which has swelled to $540 million. (Update: Now $640 million!)

Co-workers around the country are entering their office pools in droves, contributing money toward buying dozens of tickets, with the intention of splitting the winnings if one of them were to have the lucky numbers. But because the chances of winning are slim (1 in 176 million), few consider the legal pitfalls they could encounter if one ticket in the pool were to hit the jackpot.

If you and your family, friends or co-workers are pooling together for your chance at a piece of nearly half a billion dollars, here’s what you need to know to protect yourself from future lawsuits.
1. Choose a leader. The LA Times’ Rene Lynch says that office pools work better when one person — someone trustworthy, of course! — is in charge. This person should collect the money, buy the tickets and facilitate the pool. He or she should also let the group know beforehand about any personal lottery ticket purchases. This is important, because many lotto-winning lawsuits come from poolers who bought tickets with a pool, but then said they bought the tickets on their own.

2. Make sure the agreement is in writing. Be sure to articulate who is in the pool. The bigger the pool, the better the odds — but if more people are included, each takes away less. Be sure to also decide on provisions for people who may be regular office pool contributors, but may be on vacation or out sick — are they included?

“You really want to eliminate any possibility of someone saying, ‘I should have been included and was not,’ ” attorney Eric Kahn, who represented construction workers who sued a co-worker for a cut of $38.5 million in lottery winnings, told SmartMoney.

3. Make sure that everyone who put in cash gets a copy of the tickets. This is the most important step, and the best way to ensure that any personal ticket purchases are separate from the pool. The pool leader should make copies of all tickets, and distribute them to the entire pool before the drawing. This includes the front and back of the tickets, where the serial numbers are.

After that, all that’s left to decide is what you’ll do with the cash if you win. Perhaps consider taking the co-workers who didn’t enter the pool out for a drink — they’ll be having a bad week.

Mega Millions jackpot is over half a billion dollars

The logic seems sound: The more lottery tickets you buy, the better your odds of striking it rich.

So when the Mega Millions jackpot hit a record $540 million Thursday, it was only natural for some Houstonians to pool their resources with friends and colleagues to buy as many tickets as possible. After all, there are plenty of millions to go around. The more the merrier.

Gary Grief, executive director of Texas Lottery Commission, said he encourages pools, provided that, as with all lottery wagering, they are conducted responsibly.

"My advice is to formalize those agreements unless you are dealing with people you completely trust - and trust, potentially, with hundreds of millions," said Grief, who also serves as lead director of Mega Millions.

Six construction workers in New Jersey learned that lesson the hard way.

The co-workers had pooled their money for years to play the lotto. They relied on one member of their group, Americo Lopes, to purchase the tickets. In November 2009, one of the tickets he bought hit the $38.5 million jackpot. Lopes cashed it without telling his co-workers, and walked away with more than $17 million in one lump sum after taxes.

Lopes later claimed he bought the winning ticket with his own money, not funds collected from the group, but on March 14 a Union County jury ruled that he had cheated his co-workers out of their fair shares. The jury ordered Lopes to share the jackpot.

"Money can make people do some really funny things," said Joseph Gagnon, a Houston attorney who specializes in management, labor and employment matters.

There is nothing illegal about office pools to buy lotto tickets because lotteries are sanctioned by the government, Gagnon said. But he recommended using common sense and caution.

Make copies

It's a good idea to make copies of tickets and distribute them to pool participants before the drawing, Gagnon said. That way, everyone knows what the numbers are. People also can sign a written agreement naming the participants in the pool, how much they're going to contribute, and how the group will divide the proceeds if they win.

"You never think about these things until after you won," Gagnon said. "That's the problem, and that's what makes the litigation necessary."

Even if everyone in a winning pool is trustworthy, what happens to the unlucky folks in the office who didn't join in?

In 1997, almost half the staff in the Dallas County public defender's office won a $45 million jackpot. Twenty-three co-workers received $56,000 a year for 25 years after taxes.

The other half of the office got nothing, including lawyer John McLauchlan.

"The first couple days after it happened, my stomach hurt," he told the Chronicle at the time.

Texas has participated in Mega Millions for about 10 years, and has had eight jackpot winners. The biggest haul - $144 million - went to William Kiefer of Katy in January 2010.

The drawing for the current $540 billion jackpot is Friday evening.

Mega million jackpot a record $ 476 million for Friday's drawing

Mega Millions mania is here. The Mega Millions jackpot just keeps growing and growing: It's been weeks since anyone has been able to nab all five winning Mega Millions lottery numbers plus the all-important Mega Ball number.

That means the Mega Millions jackpot keeps rolling over. The Mega Millions jackpot now stands at a record $476 million -- nearly half a billion dollars -- for Friday night's drawing.

So buckle up, and prepare for three more days of Mega Millions mania.

PLUS: 6 tips to avoid getting scammed in the lottery office pool

The nationwide lottery has a wide reach, played across 42 states -- including California, plus Washington, D.C. and the U. S. Virgin Islands.

The $476 million jackpot easily smashes the earlier Mega Millions jackpot record, which occured in 2007 when the bucket of money hit $390 million. And it's likely that the jackpot for Friday's drawing will soar even higher as everyone runs to their local convenience store to plunk down their dollars.

The winning numbers for Tuesday night's drawing were 9-19-34-44-51 plus Mega Ball 24.There were still plenty of winners. Dozens of people walked away with prize money for having five of the six winning numbers.

If you win Mega Millions on Friday, you have two options.

The first is the gimme-all-my-money-now option. Mega Millions pays a one-time lump sum. The cash option for the Friday drawing as it stands at this moment is $341 million. The second option is to have your Mega Millions jackpot paid out over 26 years. For every $1 million in the jackpot, you will receive approximately $38,500 per year before taxes, according to the Mega Millions website.

Just so you know, your chances of hitting all six numbers in the Mega Millions lottery is 1 in 175,711,536.

Mega Millions Rolls Over Again, Jackpot at $356M

Chicago - All the Mega Millions players who’ve spent the past few days dreaming of how they would spend nearly $300 million now will have to start dreaming about what they would do with more than $350 million.

Once again, the Mega Millions has rolled over and the jackpot has grown to an estimated $356 million.

The jackpot for Friday night’s drawing was $290 million. No one matched all the numbers drawn for the multi-state lottery game but a handful of Chicago-area players came pretty close.

The winning numbers in Friday night’s drawing were: 06 - 17 - 19 - 20 and 21 and the Mega Ball number was 20.

There were five players who matched the first five numbers, for a $250,000 prize, and all those players got their tickets in the Chicago area, according to the Illinois Lottery.

These tickets were sold at: Speedway, 1975 Stunkle Rd. in University Park; 7-Eleven, 515 Madison St. in Oak Park; Al’s Pantry, 5561 County Farm Rd. in Hanover Park, and two $250,000 tickets were sold at the United Food Mart, 331 W, Howard St. in Evanston.

The next Mega Millions drawing will be held on Tuesday night.