What Should You Do If You Win the Lottery? A Practical Roadmap to Protect Your Wealth

The recent Powerball jackpot reaching $1 billion has reignited conversations about financial security after a major windfall. Yet here’s the uncomfortable truth: 70% of lottery winners end up broke, and 33% declare bankruptcy. If you win the lottery, simply claiming your prize isn’t enough—you need a strategic action plan.

Financial industry veterans who’ve managed significant assets at institutions like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Asset Management emphasize that proper planning immediately after winning is non-negotiable. Here’s what you absolutely must do.

Assemble Your Professional Team First

Your first action should be hiring seven critical professionals before claiming anything:

Legal protection comes first. A lawyer will help you understand fine print, establish trusts, maintain privacy, and navigate legal obligations tied to your windfall.

Security expertise is equally important. Large sums attract threats—crime, scams, and extortion become real risks. A professional security firm can protect you, your family, and your assets.

Financial management requires both an accountant and a tax specialist. The accountant ensures funds flow to the right places and manages daily financial operations. The tax attorney handles the complexity of lottery tax obligations, which vary dramatically by location and can save you substantial amounts.

Long-term wealth building needs a financial advisor who develops investment strategies and creates sustainable plans to stretch your winnings for decades.

Estate planning requires a specialized attorney to draft wills, establish trusts, plan for taxes, and outline asset distribution decisions.

Daily operations benefit from a personal assistant handling scheduling, errands, travel, and administrative tasks—freeing you to focus on strategic decisions.

Immediately Secure Your Ticket

Once you have your winning ticket, treat it like the asset it is:

• Make immediate digital copies and store them in encrypted cloud storage
• Create physical copies and store the original in a secure location
• Use an external drive as backup protection against losing the original

Understand Your Anonymity Options

Not every state permits anonymous claims, but these jurisdictions allow it: Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, New Jersey, South Carolina, Texas, and Ohio. Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont offer an alternative—claiming through a trust structure.

Critical rule: Never sign your ticket until establishing a trust and confirming your state permits anonymous claims. This legal buffer protects your identity before the claim is public.

Keep Your Win Private

This proves harder than expected, but resist the urge to share your news. The moment you reveal your status, you become vulnerable to robbery, extortion, and worse. Silence is your strongest defense during the claiming process.

Disappear Into Privacy

The final step seems extreme but statistics justify it. To substantially lower your risk profile, take these actions:

• Delete social media accounts that could connect your identity to your windfall
• Change your address to create distance from your previous location
• Obtain new contact information—phone number and email—breaking old connection patterns

These measures sound drastic because they are. They’re designed to counter the pattern that leaves most lottery winners financially destroyed despite having abundance.

The truth about lottery winnings is this: what should you do if you win the lottery depends entirely on treating it as a business acquisition, not a personal jackpot. With proper professional guidance, anonymity, and strategic privacy measures, winners can actually sustain their wealth rather than join the statistical majority who lose it all.