Lottery jackpot is a sum of money awarded by the state or a national lottery for winning a prize. The prize amount is determined by the total ticket sales and the number of winning tickets sold. The jackpot is the highest award of any prize category, but if all winning tickets are sold out, the winnings will be shared among the other prize categories. Some examples of this include EuroMillions and US Powerball, which operate on a Pari-Mutuel basis.

It’s impossible to say exactly how much the average lottery jackpot will be, but you can do some simple math to help estimate it. First, you need to know how the jackpot is calculated. Most lotteries use a system called “pari-mutuel,” which means that each prize category — from the jackpot down — gets a percentage of total ticket sales. The percentages vary from lottery to lottery, but most of them are around 5%.

The next step is to determine how much tax will be withheld from the advertised prize amount. Depending on the federal and state taxes where you live, this can reduce your take-home payout by as much as 40%. For example, if you win $1 million in Illinois, you can estimate your tax rate by adding the federal withholding rate of 24% to your estimated prize amount and then subtracting that from the actual jackpot amount.

Still, winning the lottery is a huge windfall. It can buy a lot of things, but it also comes with a host of new obligations. One of the most important is to hire a team of experts, including an attorney and financial advisers. You’ll want to hire a law firm that has experience with clients who have won large amounts of money, and you may also need to create a trust to protect yourself from creditors and predators.