$1 million cash or a chance to win $1 billion on a coin flip?

The flip is the easy answer as I am already well past the $1MM mark but $1MM does get me two/three new homes in Texas to rent out.
 
The million..
the first thing I buy is a gun, so I can rob who ever does the coin flip and get the billion.
 
BB in Crazy!!!! said:
Upper middle class, and debt free with plenty of extra. I’m starting to think half the people on this thread live in San Fran.
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idk dude it depends.

A lot of people like to consider themselves middle class that are living in relative poverty and drowning in debt. What's often considered middle class, at the lower ends, is really poverty, people are just too ashamed to admit it.

1 million after taxes, around here is 550,000k if you invest all that into the SandP500 that should reliably pump out 55k a year and after taxes that's less than 45k a year. That's middle class just about anywhere in the country.

If you get married have a couple kids and your wife divorces you takes half your shit, and you have to pay alimony on top of child support then you're back in poverty.
 
As a sherdogger, i already am a millionaire so I'd do the coin flip
 
Easy, I'd take the $1 million. I can easily invest and fund various ventures to turn it into multi millions.
 
I'd love to see a poll on this, from reading the thread it seems split even.
 
flip it, obviously.
1 million is not that much.
 
I'd take the flip. I'm not there yet but assuming nothing catastrophic happens, I think it's fairly likely I'll have a million dollars in liquid assets at some point in my life. Sure, it would be nice to have it now, but it wouldn't be put me into an entirely different class of wealth.

A billion dollars is another world. You could make massive donations that would directly solve major world problems and still live an absurdly lavish lifestyle.
 
I'm already doing just fine financially so I'll take the guaranteed million.

Edit: yeah I live in a stupidly expensive area so 2 mill sounds perfect for me. I don't need any more than that.
 
StopDucking said:
If we go by math, not picking the coin flip is illogical but I would still take the cash. Funny how our brain works.
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it is not necessarily illogical. the investment with the highest intrinsic value is not always the ideal investment. risk and uncertainly can be quantifiable, and in this hypothetical, are perfectly quantified. no intelligent investor is putting 100% of their assets into a single equity that they believe is most promising. and in fact, most investors even put money into low return assets (relative to equities) likes bonds and commodities to reduce risk, even with full knowledge that they should expect lower long term returns in doing so. and this is perfectly logical for someone who values a certain level of risk.

another way to look at it; if for example the change in your quality of life if given 1 million dollars goes up 1000%, but the change in your quality of life with a billion dollars only goes up 1800%, and the quality of your life is the primary measure you use in your decision making, then it is inehrently logical to select the 1 million dollars, as you would have a guarunteed 1000% increase vs. a average 900% increase with the higher risk option.

These arbitrary hypothetical values arent ridiculous either. there are many people out there who 1 million dollars will absolutely change their quality of life drastically. and simultaneously, a billion dollars would not necessarily make their quality of life drastically better than a million, as what is most important is stability and access to necessities.

Hell even speaking for myself, i dont think anything above ~9 million would make any appreciable difference in the quality of my life, probably much less than that even.


and in the previous hypothetical, these values are such that you dont even need to account for the value of risk, as the equity in terms of quality of life is already enough to select a choice. but in theory, lets say 1 million gives 1000% increase while 1 billion gives 4000% increase in QoL, making the coin flip twice as equitable. now is where a calculation of risk might make a difference, because if youre able to quantify your risk tolerance, and the cost of this massive risk is seen as being more than the value of 1000% increase in QoL, then you would still logically take the guaranteed mil.
 
I'll take the million. I love my job and have no plans to retire any time soon.
 
1 mil. I’d buy a home with a nice amount of land and I’d have quite a lot of money left over to work with.
 
Dan Torrance said:
idk dude it depends.

A lot of people like to consider themselves middle class that are living in relative poverty and drowning in debt. What's often considered middle class, at the lower ends, is really poverty, people are just too ashamed to admit it.

1 million after taxes, around here is 550,000k if you invest all that into the SandP500 that should reliably pump out 55k a year and after taxes that's less than 45k a year. That's middle class just about anywhere in the country.

If you get married have a couple kids and your wife divorces you takes half your shit, and you have to pay alimony on top of child support then you're back in poverty.
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Barely middle class if you don’t work sure and don’t own anything already sure, if you have an even decent job, add that into the income. What if you already own a house? Mortgage payoff right there. If not, you can get pretty decent house approved with a million in your bank. If you are in poverty after getting a free million, you don’t deserve any money.
 
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