Powerball Hits $1.8 Billion: 10 Things To Buy With Winnings, Including Cryptocurrency, Stocks, Gold And Tesla Vehicles
The Powerball drawing set for Saturday Sept. 6 continues to grow and is approaching records, currently set at $1.8 billion.
Here’s a look at the latest Powerball jackpot and some items you can win if you are the lucky person with the winning ticket.
The Powerball Jackpot: At $1.8 billion, the current Powerball drawing is the second-largest U.S. jackpot in history, only trailing the $2.04 billion won in November 2022.
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. The overall odds of winning 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 receive 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.
The drawing takes place around 10:59 p.m. ET on Mondays, Wednesday and Saturdays. If no ticket has the correct six numbers, the jackpot grows for the next drawing.
In the most recent drawing there were 11 tickets that matched five numbers, winning $1 million and four tickets that matched five numbers and had the Power Play, winning $2 million. In the 42 drawings that have failed to produce a jackpot winner, there have been 101 tickets worth $1 million or more.
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 $826.4 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 $628.06 million 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.
Read Also: Powerball Winnings Gone: What Happens To Unclaimed Lottery Tickets
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 (NYSE:SPY), which tracks the broad-based S&P 500 Index. The $628.06 million could purchase 971,387.03 shares of SPY with the winnings. The S&P 500 averaged annual returns of 9% over the last 30 years, 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 (CRYPTO: BTC), Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH). The winnings would turn into 1,890.0223 BTC, 975,097,033.069 DOGE and 48,786.6641 ETH 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 1,256,496.95 B shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK) (NYSE:BRK). Of course, Buffett is stepping down as CEO at the end of the year, which may change the future returns.
4. Nvidia Stock: One of the top-performing stocks of the last 10 years is NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), which is currently the most valuable company in the world, valued at more than $4 trillion. Nvidia could remain a market leader for years to come, making it a potential investment idea for someone over the next 29 years. The $628.06 million could purchase 3,762,190.01 shares of Nvidia.
5. Magnificent 7 Stocks: One of the popular investment themes in recent years has been buying shares of the Magnificent Seven stocks. The seven components of the popular index are Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Nvidia and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA).
Here’s a look at how many shares of each the winnings could buy, when split equally seven ways:
- AAPL: 373,969.89 shares
- AMZN: 385,440.58 shares
- GOOG: 382,662.42 shares
- META: 119,011.62 shares
- MSFT: 181,864.51 shares
- NVDA: 537,455.72 shares
- TSLA: 256,644.33 shares
Or an investor could put the lottery winnings into the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (BATS:MAGS), which tracks the seven stocks.
6. Tesla Vehicles: Vehicles from the EV leader are popular with many investors and could be a purchase for a lottery winner looking to flex their winnings in the form of a massive collection and to give away vehicles to family members and friends. The Cybertruck has a starting cost of $79,900 before tax credits and the Model Y has a starting price point of $44,990 before tax credits. Split evenly, the lottery winnings could buy 7,860 Cybertrucks and 13,959 Model Ys, probably enough to give away to every friend or close acquaintance ever.
7. Real Estate: Another popular investing option for lottery winnings could be real estate. The average home price in the U.S. is $368,581 according to Zillow Group. The winnings could buy 1,703 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 look to buy a minority stake in a team and gain wealth over time or could dip their toes into ownership in soccer with a MLS team. The Portland Timbers, Sporting Kansas City, Minnesota United, New York Red Bulls, Nashville SC, Houston Dynamo FC, FC Dallas, San Jose Earthquakes, New England Revolution, Chicago Fire FC, Real Salt Lake, Orlando City SC, Vancouver Whitecaps, CF Montreal and Colorado Rapids are all listed with team valuations under $628 million by Forbes.
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 176,818.69 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 operation. The winner could buy a superyacht that isn’t quite as large or extravagant as the one owned by Bezos.
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This article is not intended as investment advice.
This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.
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