Florida

Forget black cats, broken mirrors and unstoppable psychopaths in hockey masks -- on Friday the 13th, the biggest terrors sometimes hit our wallets. No, the Great Crash of 1929 didn't start on a Friday, but a fair number of financial disasters did.

On Friday night, a Mega Millions jackpot of more than $500 million is in the offing. Somebody may win big. Now, the only guaranteed winners of lotteries are state treasuries. But we're betting you're more interested in your own odds of winning a lottery, and where the payouts are best.

You might think that with the economy on its slow climb back to health, Americans would have gotten a little bit happier in 2011. In fact, they got a bit more miserable. And some states have more reasons to be down in the dumps than others.

The year-end housing news is sobering: U.S. homes are expected to lose more than $681 billion in value in 2011. But there's an upside: That's 35% less than the $1.1 trillion lost in 2010, according to research from Zillow.

Splitting up makes a mess of your finances, as Lynn, a nurse living in Florida knows all too well. Her 2008 divorce from her husband of 28 years left her in debt, with bad credit, and with limited financial skills. She's already begun to dig out, but she needs a better plan.

Two-year-old Pawngo bills itself as a more upscale pawnshop for the digital age, catering to a new breed of pawn customer -- not desperate, just temporarily cash-strapped. The company wants to dispel the stereotype of sketchy storefronts dealing in fenced goods -- and so far, it has had a fair amount of success.

Lotteries are big businesses in most states, and they can provide windfalls for both the winning ticket-holders and state coffers. But which states give the most back to ticket-holders and through government services?

As if we needed more proof of the outlaw actions of banks and their agents, The Baltimore Sun reports that 1,000 or more Maryland deeds are likely forgeries created by a foreclosure mill. If the accusation is true, the false deeds will create a nightmare for the innocent people who bought the homes.

HSBC announced late last month that it had put all of its U.S. foreclosures on hold to review their documents -- back in December. So why are its lawyers still pushing cases ahead? HSBC also says it doesn't robo-sign. So why does its annual report mention foreclosure document problems that sound so much like those caused by robo-signing?

All across Florida, courts are starting to clear their overwhelmed dockets by dismissing foreclosure cases the banks have failed to prosecute. In one division of one of Florida's 20 judicial districts, perhaps as many as 2,700 cases have been set for dismissal in one week.