A lottery jackpot is the prize money awarded to a winner in a drawing where numbers are randomly selected. The jackpot grows until someone wins it, and then it is reset for the next drawing. But winning the lottery is not as easy as picking six numbers, and the odds of doing so are surprisingly low.

Even so, many people try to improve their odds by buying lots of tickets or using other strategies. But according to mathematician Richard Lustig, who defied the odds and won a jackpot in the Australian Lottery, your chances of winning don’t increase by playing regularly.

Interest rates actually have a huge impact on the size of advertised jackpots. Because the amounts are advertised as an annuity – how much you would get in 29 annual payments over decades – they’re based on how much you’d earn from that sum over that period of time. And when interest rates rise, the annuity amount will also go up — even though the actual cash in the prize pool won’t change.

Aside from that, there are other big considerations for a lottery winner to consider. For example, the IRS counts the jackpot as income and taxes it at 37%. So the size of the jackpot can drop significantly after taxes. And there’s the question of whether to choose a lump-sum payout or an annuity, which can have significant tax implications. A financial planner can help you weigh the options.