$50-million: Lump sum or installments of lottery winnings?

Take the lump sum distribution, pay the taxes and put the money into a trust.

You never know what will happen to the entity running the lottery.
Today the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (part of the USA) filed the equivalency of bankruptcy.
Many US citizens who live in states such as NY that have state income taxes bought Puerto Rico tax free bonds (commonly called municipal bonds, even when not issued by a municipality).
US Law exempted this interest from state income tax.

No one know when and if these bonds will be paid off, or if the interest will accrue to be paid later.
The Lottery authority can go bust, the insurance company that issued the annuity to fund the payout can go broke.

A typical lump sum distribution is about 50%…I’m sure you could live nicely for the rest of your life on 25 million less taxes. I have trust clients earning 7% year in year out since 1984 in portfolios I manage.
So, Put 10 million in the trust after taxes, spending and charity and you could live quite nicely on 700K income per year

Lump sum, buy an island.

Lightbrite…………
This is lifelong business and management consultant advise, not legal advice:
You are correct, it should be kept secret to avoid the vultures and scammers who will flock to you.
You should first speak to a professional.
That may be your estate (wills and trust), business or tax attorney, if you have one. NOT the lawyer in a general practice who closed your real estate or handled your car accident.
It might be your Tax Professional (CPA, CMA or other accountant who does your taxes). That Tax professional will be able to recommend a qualified lawyer to handle setting up a trust.
DO NOT Talk to a Certified Financial Planner or other commission salesperson (Insurance or Stock Brokers for example).

If you put the asset into a Trust there generally is no need for an LLC.

Some tax authorities (varies by state and/or country) and some Lottery Operators (Same variance) allow the Trust to collect the winning directly.
In 1992 I had one client win a $10 million state lottery. The state permitted Trusts to collect winnings (as opposed to a human individual).

Taking the lump sum and putting it into a S&P 500 index fund will result in you having more money than taking the annual payments from the lottery.

shab29…………………….
This depends on the rules of the individual game/lottery
Many do NOT allow non-humans to collect prizes.
There was a case about 5 years ago when an individual donated the winning game-piece in a McDonald’s Monopoly promotion to a charity. The charity attempted to redeem and the piece was confiscated and no prize paid out, because the rules stated the prize had to be claimed by an individual.

Illinois is essentially bankrupt as they have not passed a budget in several years and cannot spend money, including lottery payments. It was one of the first payments they suspended

Joseph, spare me the technicalities. I said essentially they were bankrupt, not actually. If you’ve gone three years without a a lottery payment and Illinois, with no budget in sight and 11 billion dollars in other outstanding obligations, I wouldn’t count on being first in line when a budget is passed

Joe, wake up and step into the real world. Numerous organizations that provide services to the community have been forced to close for lack of funds and Illinois is contractually obligated to pay them too. In the real world who comes first, someone providing mental health care, drug treatment or a lottery winner? Until a budget is passed, none can he paid no matter how many lawsuits you file.
Put another way, if a yeshiva has no funds to pay teachers ( even if they have a contract) filing a lawsuit wouldn’t produce money if the yeshiva didn’t have it