Missouri And Texas Share Record Lottery Fortune
Vocab level: B2
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Two lucky lottery players will take home the third largest American lottery jackpot ever after matching all six numbers on Saturday.
Ticket holders in Missouri and Texas will split the whopping 1.8 billion dollar winnings.
Their odds of winning that record pot were 292 million to 1.
That's more than 20,000 times your odds of being struck by lightning.
And while we may never find out who the winners are, (both states allow winners to remain anonymous),
we thought this may be a fun opportunity to do some mathing
because hitting it big is actually a bit more complicated than just picking up an oversized check.
First, winners have to decide how they want to collect their winnings.
Do you take a lump sum or an annuity?
A lump sum is a one-time upfront payment.
You get all of your winnings and pay all the taxes at one time.
The catch, it's usually smaller than the annuity option.
In this case, the jackpot shrinks to 410 million dollars each before taxes.
That's enough to buy about 800 medianpriced homes in the United States.
Now, if they take the annuity, they get 893 million dollars each,
but it's spread out over smaller payments for 30 years.
Think of it as a superersized allowance.
Before they go on a spending spree, however, big winnings come with some big taxes.
Nearly a quarter of it goes straight to the IRS
and they may be on the hook for state taxes as well.
Many experts say the first thing winners should do is enlist financial and legal advice.
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