$640 Million and Rising: Mega Millions Jackpot Continues to Grow

Lottery officials report record sales as the Mega Millions jackpot has risen well above a half billion dollars, now at $640 million.

(The cash option was "only" $462 million. Expect the feds to try to take about half of that in taxes. Can you settle for $230 million?)

There hasn't been a jackpot winner since Jan. 24, and the prize has been growing ever since. The odds of winning the jackpot are the same: approximately one in 176 million. The odds of winning any of the Mega Millions prizes are approximately 1 in 40.

Those are the odds, but does it hurt to dream? Some people apparently are serious when they say the lottery is their investment plan–I'm only joking when I say it's my retirement fund.

Georgi has been called the state with the biggest number of "suckers" by Bloomberg, as residents spent an average $470.73 on the lottery in 2010, or 1 percent of their personal income, while they received the sixth-highest prize payouts, 63 cents for each dollar spent, the Sucker Index shows.

But do you feel like a sucker when you play the lottery? Or do you skip it? Are you, like me, an occasional "big prize" player who only buys tickets when the jackpot gets ridiculously high? (Admission: How "high" is ridiculously high depends entirely upon my mood, and if I have any one dollar bills in my wallet.)

Have you bought any lottery tickets? Do you have a system for picking numbers, or do you rely on the quick pick? Or do you laugh at those of us who do spend anything on the lottery?