Mega Millions: What We Could Have Spent $1.46 Billion On

WASHINGTON — Americans are expected to spend $1.46 billion on Mega Millions lottery tickets. So how far does $1.46 billion go?

How much of the Los Angeles Dodgers would it buy? How many trips into space? How much would it shrink the federal budget gap?

With the money that's been spent pursuing the record $640 million jackpot, you could:

_ Feed 238,000 American families for a year.

_ Buy a 73 percent share of the Los Angeles Dodgers, based on the $2 billion that Magic Johnson and other investors agreed to pay this week for the baseball franchise.

_ Stock up on 228 tons of Beluga caviar.

_ Trim this year's expected $1.3 trillion federal deficit by just over one-tenth of 1 percent.

_ Take 26 trips to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

_ Buy 10 F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets

_ Treat 685,000 average U.S. households to gasoline for a full year.

_ Quadruple the $349 million that President Barack Obama and his Republican challengers spent on their presidential campaigns through February this year.

_ Pay for just under 3 1/2 hours' worth of federal spending.

_ Buy nearly 3 million new iPads at the starting price of $499 – almost as many as Apple has already sold.

_ Pay a year's worth of health care expenses for 462,000 American average families.

_ Finance the making of the blockbuster movie "The Hunger Games" 19 times over.

_ Provide a week of unemployment benefits for nearly 40 percent of America's 12.8 million unemployed.

___

AP Economics Writer Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein and Associated Press Writer Jack Gillum contributed to this report.

From our partners

• How To Get Away With Being Bad At Your Job - The Billfold
• The Sharing Economy - LearnVest
• Uninsured: How To Get Health Care Without Insurance - The Billfold

Comments

[John Rice JR]

11:26 PM on 03/30/2012

Almost enough to start a new entitlement program....but surely enough to pay for all of Michelle Obama's vacations, well most of them.

[AbbeyLane]

11:53 PM on 03/30/2012

Laura, Hillary, Nancy, Mrs Carter, Mrs Eisenhower, Bess Truman, never took vacations?
Dolly Madison gave great parties....
I know Eleanor worked as hard as her husband, all the time. Although he was busy with
his secretary, he seemed to accomplish quite a bit.
I imagine your 104 fans are white males over 40.......sleep well.

[John Rice JR]

12:09 AM on 03/31/2012

Sure, they would take a couple per year unlike Michelle's 7-8.

[wtf is this]

09:26 PM on 03/30/2012

A $ for a few days of dreaming of becoming insanely wealthy? Cheap entertainment if you ask me.

[MNO Poet]

10:57 PM on 03/30/2012

Discount denial-based euphoria, the breakfast of capitalism.

[wtf is this]

11:07 PM on 03/30/2012

Must be sad to be so cynical. Happy I'm not you.

[Gupdiver]

08:56 PM on 03/30/2012

My father used to say that the lottery is nothing but a tax on the stupid, maybe it's time for a national lottery looking at the lines of people buying tickets for a 1 in 176 million chance.

[Laquita Jones]

09:37 AM on 03/31/2012

yeah, I'm sure the 500, 250,000 dollar winners and the 3 jackpot winners think the same thing....

[SimonTheTam]

06:13 PM on 03/30/2012

The auto bailout was over 600 times this amount. Think of what that kind of money could do...substantially more, many times over!

[Adirondacker]

12:20 AM on 03/31/2012

The auto bailout was 80 billion in loans and most of it has been paid back. You are thinking of the Wall Street bailout.

[SimonTheTam]

11:56 AM on 03/31/2012

You're correct. Actually, I was just thinking of all the bailouts in general. Just a lot of billions to think about,

[dirtydog1776]

06:10 PM on 03/30/2012

It is but a pipe dream. Money such as this would quickly be squandered, line the pockets of politicians, be used to bailout inefficient companies or mire people in a welfare mentality. In the end, nobody would be helped and the country would be the worse for it.

The crime of government is that it funnels money not to the productive, but the inept, the dishonest, the corrupt, the dishonest, the non-productive.