;@LUMP SUM OR THE ANNUITY: Here

From the available Powerball records, only four people have actually chosen to take the annuity (two groups that won jointly chose a mixture as well), despite the lump sum being a lower nominal amount. If big changes took place, future annuity payments would be affected, significantly. If Bernie Sanders were to enact an aggressive tax plan, the lump sum model would come out even more significantly ahead. On the other hand, if Ted Cruz won and established his 10% flat tax next year for the next 30 years, that would shake things up considerably. In that scenario, you’d come out ahead if you could get better than 5% annualized returns on the lump sum. Doing so could require you to take on risk that you might prefer to avoid. Let’s say you want to spend $10 million, every year. After capital gains taxes, it just takes an extremely conservative interest rate of 3.2% for the lump sum to come out ahead of the annuity. With a more reasonable return of 5% annually, you’d get $1.5 billion after 30 years with that hefty allowance. From the available Powerball records, only four people have actually chosen to take the annuity (two groups that won jointly chose a mixture as well), despite the lump sum being a lower nominal amount. If big changes took place, future annuity payments would be affected, significantly. If Bernie Sanders were to enact an aggressive tax plan, the lump sum model would come out even more significantly ahead. On the other hand, if Ted Cruz won and established his 10% flat tax next year for the next 30 years, that would shake things up considerably. In that scenario, you’d come out ahead if you could get better than 5% annualized returns on the lump sum. Doing so could require you to take on risk that you might prefer to avoid. Let’s say you want to spend $10 million, every year. After capital gains taxes, it just takes an extremely conservative interest rate of 3.2% for the lump sum to come out ahead of the annuity. With a more reasonable return of 5% annually, you’d get $1.5 billion after 30 years with that hefty allowance. If you took the annuity and spent $10 million annually and invested the rest and got the same returns, however, you’d have $997 million three decades later. But it's still important to make smart financial decisions. One key decision lottery winners must make quickly is whether to take a lump-sum cash option or take yearly annuity payments. The reduction includes taxes on the full amount as well as a discount that reflects the fact that you're taking the payment up front. Some lotteries set up payments that add up to exactly the jackpot amount, either through equal payments for a period of time or with payments that steadily rise to keep up with inflation. Many lottery winners quickly spend through all their winnings, leaving themselves destitute in just a few years. Taking the annuity option gives you a built-in control mechanism on your spending, since you can't spend the money until you get each annual installment. In other words, by voluntarily limiting yourself to taking just a small portion of your total winnings each year, you'll preserve the remainder. If you choose the extended payout, the state takes the present cash value of the jackpot and buys an annuity or bonds that will generate interest to fund the future payments. If you choose the lump sum, you will generally get slightly more than half of the advertised jackpot value. However, the state lottery can invest the entire present cash value of the jackpot while you will only be able to invest the after-tax amount. That financial windfall probably will push you into an upper tax bracket. By taking the extended payouts, your mistakes generally are confined to the current year. The annual installments let you learn from your mistakes and do better with next year's payment. If you are older, you may prefer to get it all now and be free of money worries for your remaining years. This dedication to giving investors a trading advantage led to the creation of our proven Zacks Rank stock-rating system. Powerball winners in the last seven years, only one chose the larger, but deferred, jackpot. It's called an "annuity certain" and payments will be made until 2045 -- even if the winner dies. At that point, the money would go into the deceased winner's estate and would pass on to any heirs. For example, if you were to hit a Mega Millions jackpot, you might get a choice between $48.4 million now or $87 million spread out over 30 years. This is why the lottery's lump sum payments are less than the sum of the amount of money that you'd get in payments over time. One way to think about the difference between the two is to look at the lump sum amount as your actual winnings. Once you do that, the question becomes whether or not you can invest that lump sum in a way that gets you more money over 30 years than the annuity option. For instance, if you win the lottery when you're 21 and you get 30 years' worth of $2.9 million payments, your annuity stream will stop when you're 51, which isn't that long before you want to retire. Unfortunately, many lottery winners blow their winnings. However, if you invest them, you could not only have ample income, but also obtain true wealth that could last for your lifetime and beyond. For example, you could take your $48.4 million and invest it in a conservative portfolio returning 6.5 percent, which is below the stock market's historical 10 percent annual return. If you did this, you could take out $2.9 million per year indefinitely, and your portfolio would keep growing. If you want to increase your payments by 2 percent per year for inflation, your money would last 39 years if you started with a $2.5 million withdrawal and gradually increased it to $5.3 million. Powerball, or for anyone who comes into any large sum of money, Wolberg says the most important thing someone can do before touching that money is to hire a trusted financial adviser, lawyer, and tax expert.

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Equal to 4,6,12 or 24 Straight Plays for a total of $4.00, $6.00,$12.00 or $24.00. The cost of each play is $1.00. Win if your selected numbers are drawn in any order.

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You can wager 25 cents or 50 cents on your set of numbers. This gives players freedom to choose more combinations for a dollar - you can play four sets for a dollar with 25-cent wagers, and two for a dollar with 50-cent wagers.

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The information provided here should not be relied on in place of the official winning numbers. The information provided here should not be relied on in place of the official winning numbers.