Ellen DeGeneres is known for giving her talk show guests gifts. On Tuesday’s episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the host gave her audience the chance to win $1.6 billion.
DeGeneres bought her audience Mega Millions lottery tickets, after a monologue about the record jackpot, which has reached $1.6 billion after multiple drawings with no winner.
“1.6 billion with a b,” DeGeneres said. “As in big and bonkers and bananas and Beyonce and bootylicious.”
“The lottery director is calling it ‘uncharted territory,'” she added. “I’m calling it, ‘Holy crap. I want to win.'”
But she pointed out that most of those who buy tickets are unlikely to win.
“The odds of winning are 302 million to one,” she continued. “To put that in perspective, you have a better chance of being struck by lightning, giving birth to identical quadruplets while being attacked by a shark at the same time. All of those things. You have a one in 33 million chance of being elected president if you meet the qualifications.”
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The usually apolitical host then went on a brief political tangent: “And if you do meet the qualifications, please run. Please.” DeGeneres then got down on her knees to beg her audience members to run for president. “It doesn’t take a lot of qualifications.”
DeGeneres tried not to get her viewers hopes up about winning: “$1.6 billion is insane. It’s the largest jackpot in history and if you do win — you won’t — but if you do, I mean you might, but probably not,” she said.
“There are some things that you should know and you should do it right away. First of all, you have to choose between a yearly payment or one big payment and after taxes it’s $905 million,” she said. “So it’s not the $1.6 billion you were hoping for. Anyway, they say if you win — you won’t — but if you do, you’re supposed to sign the back of the ticket immediately to claim it. So this is very important. You get yourself a Sharpie, you flip the ticket over and very, very neatly, you write out, ‘E, L, L, E, N. Big D, little e, big G-eneres.”‘
She also shared that the person who wins is encouraged to not tell anyone and to refrain from making any drastic lifestyle changes. “Although people may be suspicious when you show up to work with those new boobs you always wanted,” she joked. “‘Greg, did you get new boobs?'”
Watch the full clip below.
