KEY POINTS:
By the time you read this, some lucky, lucky souls may be $20 million richer.
Lotto Powerball jackpotted to its biggest prize in seven years and prompted a surge in the number of people buying tickets - including me. Well, why not? There may be only a one in 38 million chance of getting all the numbers in a row but if you hadn't bought a ticket, then you had no chance.
I would be ruined if I won that sort of money. I'd have to give away at least $19 million of it or else I'd end my days as a dissolute drunk. As I'm naturally lazy and prone to the odd tipple, I need to go to work to keep my life on track.
Winning that sort of money would do me no good - unless it passed through my hands as quickly as it arrived. And that's half the fun of buying a ticket - imagining how many people's lives you could change.
There was a lovely story this week of a Scottish teenager who won the jackpot and squealed so excitedly when she found out she'd won £7 million ($18.78 million), her dog nipped her on the bum.
It might all seem a bit 1984 - we proles consumed with excitement, many of us barely able to read or do basic maths to paraphrase George Orwell, and yet able to calculate to within a cent how we will spend the jackpot. It's human nature to dream and to desire wealth beyond our imaginings.
I hope there was a big winner last night and that person has lots of fun and uses the money to do good.
