you need to know the truth now. Don't believe it. The lottery if you want 30 annual payments they will give you a sliver of your money for the first 25 years and the last three years you will get a big chunk. If you take a cash payout, the lottery takes 1/2 of your winnings and taxes you on the half you keep. If you won 6000000.00 (6 million) dollars and took cash the lottery will automatically take 3 million off the top. Now they will tax you on the 3 million that you keep, which will come to depending on your taxes in your state and how you file taxes joint/single cash payment will come to around 2,160000 or less. This is one of the ugly truths about lottery winnings.