I didn’t know that when I originally heard about those gigantic jackpots the US has. I’m used to seeing the number advertised as being the lump sum and not being taxed on it. Right now the Powerball jackpot is advertised as $70 million. Powerball.com does list the lump sum payment in a reasonable-sized font at least. That’s $39.1 million. Take half of that away in taxes and you’re looking at about $19.5 million as the real prize. That’s about 28% of the advertised amount that you get in your hand. Compare that to Lotto Max in Canada. The main jackpot at the moment is $50 million. Whoever wins that will get to keep $50 million.
