Another major Mega Millions jackpot is brewing, but like the others, the eventual winner won’t take home all of it.
There was no winner in Tuesday’s drawing, pushing the current jackpot to $740 million ahead of Friday’s drawing (the total could grow even further before the numbers are drawn). At its current size, the jackpot ranks as the seventh-largest in Mega Millions history.
However, if someone wins the grand prize on Friday, they’ll be taking home what feels more like the 18th-largest prize — or worse.
There are two guaranteed reasons and an unpredictable third that impact how much of a lottery jackpot a winner takes home: the payout style, taxes, and split tickets.
When it comes to Mega Millions (as well as Powerball), there are two ways a jackpot winner can claim their prize: the annuity option or the cash option. In this case, the annuity is worth an estimated $740 million with a cash option of roughly $366.3 million.
The cash option is generally considered to be the amount of money necessary to fund the annuity option (a one-time payment, followed by 29 annual payments that grow by 5% each time).
If the winner wants all of their money now, they’ll choose the cash option. If they want to receive a small chunk of their winnings annually, they’ll select the annuity option. Thanks to taxes, neither option will reach the payouts listed above—$366.3 million in cash or $740 million in annuitized payments.
Every state lottery is required to withhold 25% of federal income taxes from a jackpot this large. Add in additional withholdings and the jackpot winner will see 37% in taxes pulled from their payout. Depending on where you live, even more could be withheld.
According to an analysis by USA Mega, the largest cash payout a winner could collect in Friday’s Mega Millions drawing is about $230.8 million, while the largest annuity is about $467.5 million in the states that do not have a tax on lottery prizes, including Calfornia.
Outside of those few states, the best payout would be in Arizona — about $221.7 million in cash or $449 million in annuity. In New York, the state with the highest lottery withholdings, the payouts would be around $190.9 million in cash or $386.8 million in annuity.
The interactive map below shows roughly how much the annuity and cash payouts would be in each state, according to USA Mega’s analysis.
Those calculations also don’t account for the possibility of multiple winners. While the odds of winning Mega Millions’ top prize are 1 in 302.6 million, there is a chance that multiple tickets in Friday’s drawing could match all six winning numbers.
Two of the largest jackpots in the game’s history — a $656 million prize in 2012 and a $648 million prize in 2013 — were split among three and two winners, respectively. Late last year, two Mega Millions tickets sold at the same gas station in Encino, California, won a $394 million jackpot. (Conveniently, California does not have a state lottery tax.)
Nonetheless, if you hit the jackpot on Friday, experts recommend keeping the ticket safe and building a team of financial pros before coming forward to claim your prize — regardless of how little you actually get to pocket.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Tickets are $2 and there are nine ways to win a prize. Drawings are held every Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET.