Mega Millions Winner Not Sharing; Do You Do Office Lottery Pools?

Do you enter office lottery pools? You know the kind—everyone toss in a buck or two and the whole office can buy 30 lottery tickets for some super-jackpot. In the event one of them hits, you all split to winnings.

Too bad it doesn't always work that way ...

Last week's Mega Millions mania has plunged a Maryland McDonald’s into a bubbling cauldron of controversy hotter than a deep-fried apple pie, according to the New York Post.

Workers at the fast-food joint who pooled their cash for tickets are furious at a colleague who claims she won with a ticket she bought for herself and has no intention of sharing.

“We had a group plan, but I went and played by myself. [The ‘winning’ ticket] wasn’t on the group plan,” McDonald’s “winner’’ Mirlande Wilson 37, told The Post yesterday, insisting she alone bought one of the three tickets nationwide that will split a record $656 million payout.

Maryland Lottery spokeswoman Carole Everett said Monday, "... We really won't believe anybody till they walk in with a ticket and the ticket is valid—and they have identification."

Wilson bought tickets for the her and her McDonald's co-workers at the 7-Eleven in Milford Mill, Maryland, where one of the three winning tickets were sold.

Three tickets—one each in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland—will split the jackpot, which officials said Monday was higher than previously estimated. It is now at $656 million, after sales from the 44 state lotteries were totaled, up from the previously reported $640 million. That means each winning ticket would receive roughly $218 million apiece before taxes, according to NPR.

But it's clear that the office pool isn't a great idea when the lottery is involved.

In New Jersey in 2010, a group of asphalt workers who regularly played Mega Millions sued a co-worker who disappeared after a November 2009 drawing. The co-worker said he needed foot surgery, but crewmembers found his name on a list of Mega Millions winners: He had claimed the $38.5 million jackpot for himself. A jury last month ordered him to share the jackpot, reported USA TODAY.

Then again, there are feel-good stories, too.

In January 2010, an elementary school principal and her staff who had been playing the lottery as a group, decided to come up with a formal written agreement so there would be no hurt feelings; three weeks later the group hit the lottery for $12 million, reported USA TODAY.

Maybe it's just better to buy your own ticket, and keep all the winning for yourself ... like a Burnsville couple did last year when one of them .

Do you think it is a good idea to be part of a group buy for lottery tickets at work? Vote in 's unscientific poll and tell us why in the comments.