lottery

After the taxman takes his share of a big lottery jackpot, it's not nearly so big as it was advertised. And even a lot of people who favor raising taxes on the rich think that's not quite fair.

What if the burden of managing your personal finances could be turned into a game? And what if, in the course of playing that game, saving or paying down your debts gave you the chance to win a lottery-sized chunk of change?

As bizarre as it sounds, 21% of American adults agreed with the statement: "Winning the lottery represents the most practical way [for me] to accumulate several hundred thousand dollars." Those 21% couldn't be more wrong.

Have you ever dreamed about winning the lottery, or having a windfall appear in your bank account? Well, a new scheme called a "sou-sou" promises to make you a "winner" not just once, but over and over. It may be unfamiliar here, the idea's pretty old hat in West Africa. Here's how it works:

A trio of wealth managers from Greenwich, one of the most affluent towns in America, claimed a Powerball jackpot worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars Monday off a $1 ticket.

Maybe winning Powerball isn't the financial lifeboat it's cracked up to be. A whopping 96% of shoppers would continue to use coupons even if they won the lottery, according to a survey released Monday by the deal publisher Redplum.com.

The severity of America's gambling addiction isn't too far behind the nation's drug problem, and it's growing. In 2007, Americans lost more than $92 billion gambling, almost 10 times more than what U.S. moviegoers spent on tickets -- and about nine times what they lost 15 years earlier.

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?

What would you do if you received a sudden financial windfall, like winning the lottery, getting a big inheritance or coming into an unexpected pile of cash? Unfortunately, many windfall recipients squander their money, going on reckless spending sprees or mismanaging their finances. Jennifer E*....

With the fears of a European sovereign debt crisis growing worse, the Spanish government said Wednesday that it's taking several measures to stop the fiscal contagion from reaching its shores, including selling a 30% stake in its national lottery business, Bloomberg reported.