[ecdavis]

Alternatively: a double or nothing scheme.

Crowdsource ~$146 million and only buy half the lotto tickets. For each of the ~11 million combinations of regular numbers, buy 13 tickets covering half the possible powerball numbers.

Assume you win the $800 million jackpot and lose 50% to taxes, you have $400 million left over. You spend ~$292 million to double your investors money and have ~$107 million left over.

Assume you don't win the $800 million jackpot, you still have 13 $1 million tickets left over. You can either pay that back to your investors, or keep it for yourself and point to a clause in a contract they signed saying that you'd only pay out if you won the jackpot.

Somehow I doubt it's legal to do something like that, but it's interesting nonetheless.

[LordKano]

Assume you win the $800 million jackpot and lose 50% to taxes, you have $400 million left over.

Gambling losses are tax deductible as expenses against gambling winnings.

Going with your scenario, if you spend ~$146 million and win ~$800 million, you'll be taxed on the ~$654 million profit. Off the top of my head you're looking at ~$400 million in after tax winnings.

So the investors get their ~$146 million back and then take a share of the remaining ~$400 million.