Mike Morin

I’m wondering if Elon Musk played Powerball recently. After all, he was looking to finance his $44-billion cash offer to purchase Twitter, the social media platform. This will be old news if the jackpot was hit since the writing of this scenario last midweek. Nevertheless, it is fun to speculate about unimaginable wealth. Can you picture the outrage if the Tesla creator played and then won a $454-million jackpot?

To put this all in perspective, Musk could use his winnings as an 10% down payment for Twitter had he won the money last week. It would be hilarious to see Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and Musk each play the same number and have to split the cash.

Nothing could rival the pandemonium following the January, 2018 Powerball jackpot that went to “Jane Doe,” who bought her winning $560-million Powerball ticket in Merrimack at Reed’s Ferry Market. Why the fake name? The winner was advised to sign the back of the winning ticket but may not have realized that New Hampshire law gives the lottery commission permission to make her name public in the name of transparency.

In 2016, a New Hampshire family that won a $487-million Powerball jackpot remained anonymous as lawyers for their trust claimed it. Jane Doe retained counsel and put the dough into the Good Karma Family 2018 Nominee Trust to retain anonymity. The new trust quickly wrote checks to a number of organizations, including Girls, Inc. and End 68 Hours of Hunger, totaling $250,000.

While a judge heard arguments, Ms. Doe’s attorneys from Shaheen and Gordon presented compelling evidence of many big money winners being harmed once the public found out who they were and where they lived.

Just one year later, who could forget the group of 30 Jordan’s Furniture employees who bought a community million-dollar winner across the street from the furniture store at Cumberland Farms? One of the 30 lucky players was Julie from Litchfield who said, “We have been playing Powerball together off and on for years and we always dreamed we’d land a big winner. Today is our day.”

When I worked at WZID, the DJs and office staff did the same thing. Closest we ever got was picking four numbers, which paid out a measly $100. Had we snagged a fifth match, we’d be celebrating like the Jordan’s group with a million big ones. And, had we won the full monty, I’d be filing this column for somewhere in the Bahamas instead of Nashua. That’s the closest I came to the big hit.

I am amused that people aren’t interested in playing Powerball until it gets to about $300-million. It seems a $5-million dollar miniscule winner is hardly worth the trouble. That pee wee amount gets you a gas fill up at Cumby’s where the furniture bunch scored big. Yet, we drive 10-miles out of our way to save 30-cents a gallon for Costco gas.

In case I do win, I’ve programmed Shaheen & Gordon into my iphone’s speed dial.

Contact Mike Morin at mike morinmedia@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @MikeMorinMedia. His column runs the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month.