What Is the Difference Between the Cash Option and Annuity Payments for Lottery Winnings?

Juliette Fairley - What is the difference between the cash option and annuity payments for lottery winnings

In this video, Juliette Fairley explains that lottery winners can choose between a lump-sum payment or an annuity, noting that annuities help protect winners from overspending by distributing their winnings in steady payments over time.
Video Transcript

Lottery winners can either receive a lump sum payout of millions of dollars or they can get an annuity. And the annuity protects them from themselves. It protects them from overspending all of the money that they receive in one shopping spree, for example. So instead of nineteen million dollars upfront one day, you get the nineteen million dollars over payments in time. So that by the time you get to the end of your life, you're still receiving payments.

You can only spend in that month what you're receiving from the annuity.