It’s official: the lottery has become the new American Dream! You can work hard all of your life, and anyone can become a millionaire with a lot of hard work and luck mixed in. But what about getting tens of millions of dollars, or hundreds of millions of dollars without very much risk? That’s a lot harder, but don’t tell that to the lucky winner who wins a $1.4 billion Powerball lottery drawing.

The Powerball lottery has now reached a whopping $1.4 billion. After the $900 million lottery yielded no formal winners at the start of January, the Powerball jackpot rolled up to $1.3 billion on Sunday. The volume of tickets being purchased has reached levels so high that the jackpot is now a record $1.4 billion.

What a winner needs to consider is what to do and, more importantly, what not to do! Lotto dreamers also need to consider what they would do if they won. Coming into hundreds of millions of dollars all at once brings pitfalls and dangers. Coming into such a sum is nothing short of empire-building money. Now consider that all empires have or can crumble — and many lottery winners end up broke in just a few years.

To avoid being the laughing-stock of every family joke for many years, 24/7 Wall St. has shared 12 things not to do if you ever win the lottery. Even if you don’t play the lottery, this applies to many people who rapidly come into vast sums of money. That would be artists or celebrities who become sensations overnight or in short order, lawsuit and judgment winners, or people who unexpectedly inherit millions of dollars.

Lottery winners need to be extremely careful. They can become marked targets, by enemies or by friends and family. There have been at least two murders tied to lottery winners in recent years. It is also far easier to blow through vast sums of this size than you might think. Yes, you can blow hundreds of millions of dollars.

National Public Radio (NPR) has now featured this segment on its All Things Considered radio show. Buying jets, luxury yachts or islands, having an entourage, and becoming the business and finance backer for your entire cadre of family, friends and acquaintances can make you go broke without a proper financial plan and without certain protections in place.

How would you like to win tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars and then go broke in a few years? This 1.4 billion annuity value comes with an $868 million cash value for those who opt for a lump-sum payment. Most people are going to take the lump-sum rather than a payout, so please don’t go broke!

Here are the 12 things not to do if you win the lottery.
Don’t forget to sign a ticket, or report it to the state.

It is sad, but a modicum of research shows that not signing a ticket or failing to report to the state are the simplest and most common errors to make. Can you imagine losing a lottery ticket? Then imagine what can happen if someone else snags your ticket and shows up to collect the prize. Fighting over true ownership of a lottery ticket is not a simple task, and many disputes have arisen over who owns what ticket. In a way, lottery tickets are almost like the last form of bearer bonds that anyone can collect on if they show up with the coupons and bonds in hand. Lottery tickets expire at different times from state to state, but they generally expire in 90 days to one year.

Don’t tell everyone you know.

If you suddenly win millions of dollars, chances are pretty high that you will to want to brag about it. How could you not? The problem is that announcing to the public that you won before you collect your winnings can put you in grave danger. Literally, grave danger. Everyone who has ever done anything for you now may come with their hands out asking for something, or worse. You probably have heard of kidnap and ransom insurance before. One lottery winner was even murdered. If you can manage it, and if your state allows it, try to remain anonymous for as long as humanly possible. How you became vastly wealthy will be found out in time anyway, but there is no need to alert everyone.

Don’t automatically decide to take the up-front cash.

Some lottery winners want all the cash up front, and they take a discounted amount in order to do so. Other lottery winners choose to receive the annual annuity payments. Getting tens of millions of dollars at once probably sounds better than getting a paycheck for the next 30 years or so. Now consider that close to 70% of lottery winners end up broke, many within a couple or few years. Let’s say that you can choose to get $172 million up front, or you can choose to receive a payout of $300 million slowly over the course of a lifetime. Most people choose the lump sum rather than the annuity payment, as it is instant empire-making money. Go see a reputable and visible tax professional and a reputable investment advisor at a top money management firm with a widely recognized company name and a long corporate history. This theme of “reputable and visible” will echo throughout. Do this before you make the decision about a lump-sum or annuity option.

Don’t think that you are the smartest person about money and finance.

Just because you become wealthy overnight, chances are extremely high that you are not the best person to manage your money and financial interests. If you go from living paycheck to paycheck, does it sound right that you will know the best things to invest in and the best tax and asset protection strategies? There are many ways to invest and protect that fortune, and that might not include just buying some stocks and bonds and letting it ride. Your drinking buddy might also not be the best choice as an advisor and expert. Having a solid and respectable team of advisors and managers in place will act as your buffer that protects your assets now and in the future. Also, don’t think that this money is a tax-free payment, as you probably will have to pay the top tax bracket to the IRS and the highest state and local income taxes. Do you know how to protect your assets against all threats and know exactly how to protect your estate in case you die or become incapacitated? Here is a hint: If you answered yes, you probably did not bother playing the lottery.

Don’t let your debts remain in place.

If you get the “I’m rich and don’t have to pay anymore” bug, you might be dooming yourself. One lottery winner in California was strapped with debt from property purchases and what seemed to be excessive insurance policies. Whether you take the lump-sum or the annuity option, if you have a single penny of debt in the immediate future and distant future, then something is seriously wrong. For that matter, you should not have a single debt ever again. If you manage to go broke down the road and still have a mortgage, car payments, student loans, credit card debt and personal bills, you will have lost the right to be mad when all of your friends and family members ridicule you every day for the rest of your life.

Don’t be a high-roller or live large.

If you go from living a simple life to instantly being able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) per week, what do you think happens to your expectations in life ahead? Chances are high that you will want more of the same. If you start gambling in Las Vegas and are not happy until you are gambling with hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) per play, you are dooming yourself. Wait until the real con men find you. Taking you and your favorite 50 people on a luxury cruise around the world can become very expensive, very fast. Having an entourage generally only works for people who keep making more money, and entourages have bankrupted many musicians and athletes.
Don’t go out and buy everything for everyone and for yourself.

There has to be a huge temptation for lottery winners to go out and buy all the millionaire toys they can think of. The answer here is simple to say and hard to follow, but you likely will regret the decision if you go out and buy dozens of cars, houses and whatever else you can think of for you and your friends and family members. This will start you on a bad path, and you could easily become the next friends and family personal welfare department. If you start buying everything for everyone, chances are high that they might expect that to last forever. The other end of the story is that you do not have to be a cheap skate either. Now consider a personal lottery story that was told in which a lucky winner bought more than 30 cars and multiple houses in three months for himself and friends and family.

Don’t say to hell with a budget.

Do millionaires have budgets? The smart ones do. Maybe it sounds crazy that you have to live within means when you get instant empire-making money. After all, most lottery winners instantly become wealthier than everyone they know combined. This also goes back to having advisors and being prudent, but at the end of the day you do still have a finite sum of money. Chances are very high that you will make some serious purchases and your lifestyle will be changed forever. Without setting limits for yourself and for what you do with others is a recipe for disaster. Again, many lottery winners go broke. If they went broke in a very short period, what do you think the reflection about wishing for a proper budget would be?

Don’t become the business backer for all your friends and family.

Leave being a venture capitalist up to the venture capitalists. One common theme that has come up with lottery winners with instant vast sums of cash is that friends and family start pitching them on endless business ideas. Sure, some will sound great and some will sound crazy. If someone has no knowledge of a particular business and does not know what it takes to actually run a business, will that person do better because a lottery winner who lucked into vast wealth provided money to start it? If your answer is yes, you seriously need to protect yourself (from yourself). Now think about whether most lottery winners had the understanding of how to run a business the day before they won the lottery.

Don’t just give the whole thing away.

Some lottery winners might feel so lucky that they want to give away just about all their money to a charity or to a religious institution. This sounds great, but even the truly wealthy who earn their money the hard way do not do this. You can be more than generous without doing the unthinkable. Imagine what you will feel like down the road if or when a serious crisis arises in your life or your family’s lives and you no longer have the finances to help. Should you be charitable? Absolutely! Should you give it all away just because a church or a charitable group does good things? Absolutely not. If you insist on giving away your new-found fortune, do it the way the wealthy do it — structure your will and estate to give away your fortune upon your death.

Don’t get celebrity and athlete envy.

Being a high-roller is one thing, but you can go incredibly broke trying to keep up with celebrities. Keeping up with the Jonses is bad enough, but do not try to keep up with the Kardashians or other celebrities. It may seem cool to own a 200-foot yacht or private jet or to have your own entourage. It may also seem cool to own castles in Europe or Picasso paintings. These can easily drain your financial statement to zero. Trying to dodge taxes might even sound appealing to misguided people. Now go add up the price tags of these things, plus the cool cars and houses and the rest of it. You can go broke real quick. Just ask people like Nicolas Cage, Wesley Snipes, M.C. Hammer, Evander Holyfield and many other famous people who had it all and ended up broke or close to it how they feel about things. And dodging your taxes may come with a greater price than just mere penalties.

Don’t think that laws and decency no longer apply.

It is true that the wealthier you get, the better attorneys and legal defense you can afford. Still, you will have to live under the “good citizen” laws, and you still likely will have to pay taxes just like Warren Buffett’s secretary. Living a reckless life without concerns about the laws of the land will not keep you from going to prison (or worse). Most good sports coaches will tell their star athletes upfront that chances are high they will have to be human for far longer than they are going to stars. Movies can glamorize scoundrels, but what good does it do you if you are incredibly wealthy and such a pariah that no one will associate with you? Remember, you don’t get to take any of your wealth with you when you die. And how fun will it be to be paying out all of your winnings to attorneys fighting to keep you out of jail or fighting civil suits looking to take your new wealth away?

Don’t forget about a 13th runner-up issue.

Can you imagine that you need to think about the solvency or financial position of the state you are playing a lottery in? The State of Illinois did not have a budget resolution for much of 2015. The state’s finances have been challenged for years, and the state sadly did not have the money legally in place to pay out the winnings to its top lottery winners. Imagine getting the winning numbers, only to receive a state voucher. Can you change your life in a meaningful manner on a state voucher that is nothing more than an IOU?

Again, 24/7 Wall St. would not want anyone who wins the lottery to end up without a penny to their name (or worse). Following a list of things to do or not do sounds easy enough. Unfortunately, life’s temptations can get in the way of logic.

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