The Powerball jackpot has soared to $1 billion as one of the biggest lottery jackpots of all time. The jackpot comes after 2022 saw the three times weekly lottery drawing as one of the most searched items on Google for the year.
The Powerball Jackpot: At $1 billion, the Powerball will be the third largest jackpot in the game’s history if a winner is drawn Wednesday night.
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. The overall odds to win a prize are 1 in 24.9 tickets.
Lottery players can purchase tickets for $2 each in more than 40 U.S. states, choosing to pick their own numbers or receiving a random selection. Five numbers between 1 and 69 are selected, along with a Powerball number 1 to 26. To win the Powerball, a player has to match all six balls in the drawing.
Lottery Winnings: Winners of large jackpots can take a lump sum cash payment or choose to be paid out the full amount over 29 years with 30 payments. One payment is made upfront and additional payments each year go up by 5% to fight inflation.
The cash payout is lower than the full payout over 29 years. The current cash payout listed on the Powerball website is $516.8 million.
A winner will have to pay federal taxes and will be responsible for state taxes depending on where they reside.
The IRS takes 24% immediately from winnings over $5,000. This means that the cash payout for Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot would be $392,768,000 based on a lump sum cash option after the 24% federal taxes are taken out.
The winner could choose to save the money, invest it, or spend it on various items.
Here’s a look at 10 items that could be considered.
1. S&P 500: If a winner decides to invest the money, they could consider investing in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, which tracks the broad-based S&P 500 Index of 500 of the largest U.S. companies. The $392,768,000 could purchase 861,408.90 shares of SPY with the winnings. The S&P 500 has averaged annual return of 9.89% from 1992 to 2021, which would be a better return than the 5% return on choosing the 29 years of payouts.
2. Cryptocurrency: A potential investment for the winner could be to put the money in cryptocurrency, which is often more volatile than the stock market. The winnings could be split between three popular cryptocurrencies of Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD and Dogecoin DOGE/USD. The winnings would turn into 4,354.13 BTC, 68,439.83 ETH and 1,859,696,969.7 DOGE based on prices at the time of writing.
3. Investing with the Oracle of Omaha: Legendary investor Warren Buffett has been one of the top stock pickers of the last 50 years. While Buffett would tell the winner to put their money into bonds or index funds to preserve wealth, the winner could buy 1,143,595.9 B shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK-A)(NYSE: BRK-B).
4. Apple Stock: One of the top-performing stocks of the last 10 years is Apple Inc AAPL. At a market capitalization of $3 trillion, Apple is the largest publicly traded company in the world. Apple could remain a market leader for years to come, making it a potential investment idea for someone over the next 29 years. The $392,768,000 could purchase 2,010,894.9 shares of Apple.
5. Tesla Stock: While winning $392.8 million would not put a person close to the $256 billion in wealth of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it could buy a lot of Tesla shares. The winnings could purchase 1,339,225.3 shares of Tesla
6. Tesla Model Ys: One of the most popular electric vehicles of all time and among the bestselling vehicles in the world, the Tesla Model Y could be a top pick for the lottery winner. The winner could purchase 9,760 Model Ys based on the price of $40,240 after tax credits. The winner could choose to give away vehicles to family members and friends or build out a collection of impressive vehicles.
7. Real Estate: Another popular investing option for lottery winnings could be real estate. The average home price in the U.S. is $348,853 according to Zillow Group. The winnings could buy 1,125 average-priced homes in the U.S. The winner could hold the homes to gain value over the years or choose to rent them out. Benzinga has a guide on how non-lottery winners can invest in real estate here.
8. Sports Teams: For the ultra-wealthy, buying a professional sports team has been a way to preserve and gain wealth. The lottery winnings after taxes would not be enough to buy a team in the MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL. The winner could purchase CF Montreal, a soccer team in Major League Soccer, valued at $390 million by Sportico. The valuations of MLS teams have been rising and could see more value in the future with soccer legend Lionel Messi joining MLS team Inter Miami, potentially boosting the entire league.
9. Gold: Another popular investment option over the years has been to buy gold. The winner of the lottery, who chooses a cash lump sum could buy 198,197.5 ounces of gold.
10. Superyacht: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people in the world and had no problem shelling out $500 million for a superyacht. The billionaire also spends $25 million annually on the boat and its operations. A superyacht that isn’t quite the size of Bezos comes with a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars and would likely cost several million dollars to run. The lottery winner could buy one superyacht and operate it for many years to come.
This article is not intended as investment advice.
Read Next: March Madness Perfect Bracket Odds, Hold My Beer Mega Millions And Powerball
Photo: Shutterstock
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
