What's your jackpot really worth?
Enter your numbers for a custom estimate.
Your details
Example: $200,000,000 — jackpots change every draw, so enter any amount you like.
Your true take-home
Estimate—
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Amount each state withholds the moment you collect. Your selected state is highlighted in gold.
| State | Withholds | On $50k | On $1M | Note |
|---|
Ranking 1 · Highest taxes
Where winners lose the most to tax
Each state ranked by total tax lost on a $200M jackpot.
| # | State | Total lost ↓ | Federal | State tax | Rent yrs | Childcare yrs | 4-yr degrees | Salary yrs |
|---|
Ranking 2 · Highest buying power
Where your money goes furthest
Take-home re-ranked by local cost of living.
| # | State | Buying power ↓ ⓘ | Take-home | COL index ⓘ | Homes | Acres | Years without working | State tax |
|---|
Methodology & notes
How we built this lottery calculator
A transparent look at the lottery data, tax assumptions and cost-of-living inputs behind the calculator and rankings — so you can judge the numbers for yourself.
The lottery tax engine
Every figure in the lottery calculator and both rankings comes from one shared tax engine, so the tool can never contradict itself. We apply 2026 federal income-tax brackets (IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32) on top of each state's own 2026 income-tax brackets and standard deductions, sourced from the Tax Foundation's annual state-by-state report and individual state revenue departments. Tax on winnings is calculated the honest way — we compute your total tax with the prize, subtract the tax you'd owe without it, and the difference is what the win actually costs you. That means a prize stacks on top of any other income you enter, pushing into higher brackets exactly as it would on a real return.
Advertised jackpot vs. the cash you receive
Headlines quote the full annuity — paid out over roughly three decades. Almost every winner instead takes the lump-sum cash option, which is only a fraction of that advertised figure (around 48% for Powerball and 49% for Mega Millions, varying slightly each drawing). All study figures are built on the $200M advertised → $96M cash baseline, and the federal government's mandatory 24% withholding on prizes over $5,000 is applied before your final bill is reconciled at tax time.
Buying power & real-world equivalents
Lowest tax isn't the whole story — a dollar stretches further in some states than others. We adjust each state's after-tax take-home by its cost-of-living index (MERIC, US average = 100) to show true buying power. The "homes", "acres" and "years without working" figures translate the money into tangible local terms using state median home prices (Zillow/NAR), land values and median household income (BLS/Census), giving readers an intuitive sense of scale rather than abstract millions.
What's deliberately left out
To keep comparisons clean and consistent across all 51 jurisdictions, the model excludes local and city taxes (for example, New York City adds up to 3.876% on top of state tax), itemized deductions, and individual tax credits. Real outcomes vary with personal circumstances, payout timing and where exactly you live within a state. A handful of states get special handling where the law requires it — California and Washington exempt lottery winnings from state tax, and Mississippi applies a flat special rate.