Winning the lottery is the dream of millions of Americans. When those lotteries get up into the tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars, they become instant dynasty creators or king-maker events. The Mega Millions jackpot has now hit $194 million, after no winners landed for the $173 million lottery earlier this week. The next drawing date is Friday, May 22!

24/7 Wall St. has tracked lottery news for some time, and there is a dark side to them. It is not just that millions of lottery players never win much more than just enough money to buy a few more lotto tickets. Many lottery winners end up dead broke, and some just within a few years. In order to help at least some avoid this nasty event after the win of a lifetime, 24/7 Wall St. created a list of 12 things that winners should not do.

The official announcement from the Arizona Lottery was shown on the Mega Millions site to be worth a $117 million cash option. What really must be considered here is that this was the largest Mega Millions jackpot since the $270 million one in January. That leaves a four-month buildup that can create one mega-millionaire or a bunch of millionaires overnight.

ALSO READ: The 10 Richest Towns in America

A separate release from Thursday showed that the Holiday Weekend Mega Millions and Powerball Jackpots would hit a total of $332 million: The Mega Millions jackpot for Friday, May 22, offers an annuity value of $194 million and a cash prize of $117 million. Drawn Saturday night, the Powerball jackpot features an annuity value of $138 million and a cash prize of $86.3 million.

The Arizona Lottery announcement said:

Even if players don’t win the big jackpot, there are eight other ways to win, with prizes ranging from $1 up to $1 million. So far in fiscal year 2015, Arizona players have already won more than $13.4 million in Mega Millions cash prizes. The Arizona Lottery advises players to sign their tickets and check them as soon as possible to avoid missing out on any prizes they may have won.

Some readers want a hint of what they should and should not do, and some advice may seem basic. Other tips are not well known at all, and some are dire to a lottery winner’s future (and perhaps even to their life). Do you take the cash or take the annuity payment option? Live large or hide? What are your tax considerations? Should you get an advisor, or are you now a financial genius? Those are just some of the surface items.

While a $194 million lottery sounds massive, it is nowhere close to a record. A Mega Millions lottery from 2012 reached $656 million, and a $648 million Mega Millions jackpot was won at the end of 2013. There was also a $590.5 million winning in 2013 and a $587.5 million winning in late 2012.

Here is the full list of 12 things not to do if you win the lottery.

ALSO READ: 9 States With Highest Rates of Identity Theft

The Arizona Lottery site also shows just how much one state can make off lotteries. They count nearly $3.4 million per week. Since July 1981, the Arizona Lottery has paid out more than $5.8 billion in prizes and has generated over $3 billion in net funding to the state.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.