New England states start new lottery game Thursday

Yes, that would seem to be the problem.  The JP only goes up about 100,000 for every drawing, which means it takes forever to get to a sizeable sum.  It last hit in December and started over at 1 million.  Now its up to just over 5 million.

Early 30s.  That's probably why I like the Win For Life games, though I'm not sure whether or not my age affects my opinion on the larger lump sum/annuity issue.

Ouch!  And I thought New York Lotto was bad.  The jackpot starts at $3 million and increases by $500K for each rollover.  It used to be more (a couple million at a time, at least), but Lotto has decreased in popularity since NY joined Mega Millions and Powerball.

Well, the new trend is going to be $2 a ticket for new games coming out. Texas is bringing out a new game later this year that will cost $2. I don't have a problem spending more than a dollar on a lottery game, but if it costs $2 to start with, then I have a hard time buying more than one ticket. I'm buying $5 worth of Texas 2 Step tics on Thursdsay, but if they were $2 a tic, then I wouldn't.

already got my qp.

Good luck!

Lotteries fund annuity prizes in a couple of ways.  Some lotteries are limited to a very few U.S. government bonds.  Others can buy a much wider range of government-backed securities and, in some cases securities held in trust by custodial banks to back portions of the annuity payments (though generally not more than 10% of the principle and interest).  In other cases, like Lucky For Life, the annuity payments are paid through insurance company contracts.  In a very eerie kind of way, insurance companies know how long a person is going to live and the lottery will pay the price for that contract.

But the winner does not stand the risk of the investment.  An annuity win is a contract with the lottery corporation or states running the lotteries.  If the investment fails, the lottery will still need to honor the contract.

In cases where the lottery holds the securities to maturity, they cash in on some regular basis and cut the check.  In the case of an insurance annuity, the insurance company will likely cut the check.

Annuity options exist in U.S. lottery games because of taxes.  However, Canada (with tax-free lottery prizes) has a successful annuity game.  Players like the idea that they can screw up for a year or two and still look forward to a payment next year. 

CASH is not always the best option.  The are known factors to consider.  Imagine a financial advisor coming to you and saying - let's take your income BEFORE taxes, invest it, then pay it out over XX number of years as a graduated annuity (to keep up with inflation).  Oh, and the annual payments are 100% guaranteed (as much as that phrase has any meaning on a planet that will not endure for all eternity).  Most folks (and financial experts) would jump at that chance - and that is exactly what the Powerball annuity does.

The U.S. has a graduated tax system.  The more you earn in a single tax year, the higher your tax percentage.  Taking CASH pushes the most dollars into the highest rate (35% for the feds, state amounts vary).  Spreading out the payments means that the first dollar you get each year is tax-free (actually some higher amount depending on some personal factors). 

Now, are there times when cash is good?  The current U.S. maximum tax rate is at historic lows (despite what you hear on FOX).  Tax rates are likely to go up.  Interest rates for your investment are at historic lows.  Even though you are investing FAR LESS after taxes (and so will earn far less), you MIGHT be able to do better by paying the 45% or so to state and federal taxes and waiting for better interest rates.

Of course, matched against the 100% guranteed annuity stream, there is a risk that you will do something or something will happen so that you lose it all.  There is not ONE RIGHT ANSWER.  You need to know who you are (did you save enough money to retire and maintain your same frugal lifestyle by the time you were 35?  You need to predict the future a bit.

One thing you should take into consideration....Look at all the jackpot winners on both the Powerball and the MegaMillions over the last several years......How many took the CASH versus Annuity ? A reasonable educated guess is that enough of those winners consulted with a financial planner before they claimed....How many were told to take the annuity ???   Do you honestly believe these people went AGAINST their financial planners advice ???   Cash is king

Hired "financial experts" do indeed usually recommend taking the cash.  Then they get to charge a fee to play with the money left over after taxes.  But if you ask about facts, they can start to sputter.  I've read columns by "financial experts" who "forget" about taxes and think they can invest the entire cash amount (like the lottery can) or who do the math without knowing that there are annual payments involved (they run spreadsheets inveseting the whole amount for 25 years).  This is one area where it doesn't take a lot of smarts to figure out your best option and you do need to question the "experts".  There ARE some good arguments for taking the cash these days (with low taxes and low interest rates) but you also need to think about where you are going to put the money (how deep the hole in your back yard); how you are going to invest half the money (after taxes) and earn as much as the annuity (which invests twice as much); and whether you are the kind of person who won't spend it all.

I would tell you to take cash too so that I would get a bigger management fee for managing the money plus the added bonus of possibly taking you for everything that you have. If you think the lawyers and the financial planners out there are your friends especially when it comes to that kind of cash, then you have another thing coming. 

I can't even count on my hands the amount of people I know personally that have been taken by financial advisors for hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. 

Once you invest a certain amount of money it used to be at least $100,000 you were considered an institutional investor and an expert and could not claim ignorance of the market if your money was lost by a financial advisor, even if you were completely ignorant.

I would'nt be surprised if it goes 10 drawings or more with no winners. Curious to see how this works out.

"...(despite what you hear on FOX)."

Uh-oh.

Cash vs. annuity debate aside, I've been anxiously awaiting this game for several reasons.

First, as a Vermont resident, I've been clamoring for a Monday/Thursday draw game for a long time now.  Many states already have either a daily or a Mon/Thurs game for a while now, and only now has Vermont (and, by extension, Maine and New Hampshire) begun to offer such a game. 

Second, Lucky for Life is infinitely preferable to the outgoing Weekly Grand (Extra).  The only time I ever won anything appreciable was by using a trick in which I marked the same two numbers for all five game panels on the playslip and had the machine QP the rest.  When those two numbers, along with a couple of others on that ticket, came up, I ended up winning about $60...but just once.  The Friday raffle was a joke as well, with a grand total of 120 tickets out of tens of thousands winning just $100.  Lucky for Life replaces that with more easily attainable, albeit smaller, prizes. 

The top prize is also very appealing to me at my current age of 35; the prospect of earning more in one day than I do in two weeks' worth of work makes it what I call "quit-your-job money."  $365,000 a year (give or take, depending on the frequency of the actual payments) for the rest of my life?  Sign me up!

Unless they pay more for the lower-tier prizes, I would not play this game.