Friday’s Mega Millions jackpot has hit $1.1 billion, which could mark the second highest winning ticket for the jackpot game. Here’s a look at how much someone could take home and what they could choose to purchase with the winnings.
Mega Millions Jackpot: The Mega Millions jackpot for Friday July 29 has hit $1.1 billion. A winning ticket could be drawn Friday night and would give a winner an important decision.
Winners of large jackpots can take a lump sum cash payment or choose to be paid out the full amount over 30 years, with one payment upfront and additional payments each year going up by 5% to fight inflation.
To win the jackpot, a player needs to match five white balls numbered 1 to 70 and a Mega Ball numbered 1 to 25.
The odds to win the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350.
Matching five white balls pays out $1 million with odds of 1 in 12,607,706.
Overall odds to win a prize of at least $4 from the $2 Mega Millions ticket are 1 in 24.
At the time of writing, the cash payout is $648.2 million.
A winner will have to pay federal taxes of 37% on the winnings and will be responsible for state taxes depending on where they reside.
After federal taxes, the lump sump payout is $408,366,000, which could be saved, invested or spent on various items by the winner. Here’s a look at 10 items that could be considered.
Related Link: Mega Millions Jackpot July 29: How To Play, Where To Buy Tickets And Where Winning $1 Billion Lottery Ranks
1. S&P 500: If a winner decides to invest the money in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPY), which tracks the broad based S&P 500 Index of 500 of the largest U.S. companies, the $408.36 million won could purchase 997,961.88 shares of SPY. For perspective, investing the same amount in the SPY 29 years ago (July 29, 1993) would be worth $3.7 billion today, which would beat the 30-year payouts from the winnings.
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), Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE). The winnings would turn into 5,680.74 BTC, 79,240.67 ETH and 1,970,783,263.36 DOGE based on prices at the time of writing.
Related Link: How To Buy Cryptocurrency
3. Meme Stocks: Two of the most popular meme stocks over the last two years have been GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME) and AMC Entertainment Holdings (NYSE:AMC). Split evenly, the winnings could buy 6,151,943 shares of GameStop and 14,419,703 shares of AMC.
4. 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 1,364,631 shares of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B). Berkshire Hathaway shares are up 250% over the last 10 years.
5. Apple Stock: One of the top performing stocks of the last 10 years is Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL). Worth $2.5 trillion, Apple is one of the largest companies in the world and likely to remain a market leader for years to come. The $408.36 million could purchase 2,539,432 shares of Apple.
6. Tesla Stock: Winning $408.36 million would not put the person on the Bloomberg Billionaires list like Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, who tops the list at $248 billion. It could however, allow the winner the opportunity to buy 474,656.53 shares of Tesla.
7. Tesla Model Ys: One of the most popular electric vehicles is the Model Y from Tesla. A winner could choose to buy a collection of Tesla Model Ys for themselves or to give them away to family members and friends. The winnings could buy 6,188 Tesla Model Ys based on a price of $65,990 each before savings.
8. Real Estate: One popular option for investing at least a portion of the winnings could be real estate. The average home price in the U.S. is $354,165, according to Zillow Group (NASDAQ:Z). The winnings could buy 1,153 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.
9. Sports Teams: For the ultra wealthy, buying a professional sports team has been a way to preserve and gain wealth. Despite the large winnings of $408.36 million, the winner would only be able to buy a NHL or MLS team among the largest sports leagues in the U.S.
Buying a team in the MLB, NBA or NFL would set a person back at least $1 billion, $1.5 billion or $2.3 billion, respectively, according to recent team valuations. The Columbus Blue Jackets, Florida Panthers and Arizona Coyotes are all valued at around $400 million to $480 million among NHL teams. In the MLS, the Colorado Rapids, CF Montreal, Vancouver Whitecaps and Orlando City are all valued at $370 million to $400 million.
10. NFTs: Another potential high risk/high reward investment could be non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The winnings split between two of the largest NFT collections of all time could buy 1,369 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and 1,700 CryptoPunks NFTs. Prices are based on floor prices and the winnings would likely buy less than this number, as there are not that many listed at the floor price.
Benzinga Users Chime In: Benzinga polled its followers on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) on Friday with the question regarding the Mega Millions.
“What would be the first thing you’d do if you won the $1B jackpot?” Benzinga asked.
While several of the options above center around investing, user @stephen18644932 said they would “delete my trading app so I’m not tempted to lose it all.”
User @official_MrRic followed #3 above and said they would invest in AMC, GameStop “and many, many other plays.”
User @DOGEmanDex offered some potential safe advice by saying they would invest in “safe deposit box, attorney and trust fund.”
Benzinga follower @RichardJudge17 followed #7 above and said they would “buy real estate.”
User @Mo_Rockett said they would also invest in real estate but would also buy some cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Floki Inu (CRYPTO: FLOKI).
Twitter follower @ABuffalo4lyfe may have the best investment piece of advice by saying they would “Buy Benzinga.”
This article is not intended as investment advice.
Photo via Shutterstock.
