How much is the super lotto jackpot?

Today is Wednesday February 20th and like all Wednesdays there is a Super Lotto Jackpot tonight drawn at 8pm. Nobody won the jackpot last Saturday so it has been added to today’s jackpot. This has made today’s jackpot worth $26 million dollars. In fact, the last Super Lotto jackpot winner was on December 22nd 2012. The winner of that jackpot got $23 million dollars. The next day the jackpot was reset to $7 million dollars. Since nobody has won since then, the jackpot has been increasing about $1 million dollars per drawing. This is an increase of $2 million dollars per week since there are two drawings per week. However, since the jackpot has been rather high these past few weeks, more people have been playing resulting in $2-3 million increases per drawing instead of the usual $1 million.

People typically start rushing to play the lottery when the amounts are higher. This actually makes your chances of winning much worse. Your best bet is to play when the jackpot is lower and there are less players competing with you. Would your life be that much worse if you won $7 million instead of $50 million for instance. The important thing here is to win the millions in the first place. This is just something to keep in mind when choosing which times to play lottery.

The Super Lotto gives you the choice to either receive your winnings in a lump sum or with 26 anual payments. You may be thinking that the lump sum is the obvious choice but it isn’t so easy. When you choose the lump sum almost half of your winning will be immediately taxed. The annuity provides less taxation but you must think about inflation and how much your winning will be worth 10 or 20 years down the line. For today’s jackpot, a winner who chooses annuity will receive around $880k dollars per year before taxes.