+41 @sdeligar Very much so especially if certain laws were to change. IE if the state paying out your winnings decides that lotteries are now illegal. Even without that, you have to consider that with the lump sum, you pay taxes once and you're done. With the annuity you are paying income taxes on that money every year on top of whatever else you would have to pay from a job or whatever. That means depending on how much taxes increase over 30 years, you could pay more in taxes than the lump sum.

+11 @Eagle_Fang135 It is a finance question. Either option has risks. If you take the lump sum it is easy to fiend it all and the be broke (happens more than you think). Also puts the burden on you to meet/exceed the return that the annuity provides. Your investments can go bust, can have bad years, etc. Flip side is an annuity can go bust if the institution behind it goes bankrupt. You are locked into yearly payments and your total cash is locked in. The return may be less then you can get on your own. Heck you could die before getting all of it. If you try to “sell it” to get the remainder as a lump sum then you take a hit in the return, I personally had an early retirement package where I could cash out the pension (roll into an IRA). I did that as the annuity would only grow at 5%. Plus if I died it was gone. Instead I am invested in the market and should average 10% return. And death benefit is 100%. Of course the risk is the market crashes. But it is liquid and not locked into a multi-decade annuity.