I can’t even imagine winning this much money. It’s the biggest pay-out ever, $363 million was the highest before but that was two winning tickets. According to CNN.com ‘the cash option is $177.8 million, or $124.46 million after taxes. On the installment plan, over 30 years, the first payment would be $6,507,986 after taxes.’
As long as you you don’t blow it, it seems like you’d be better off taking the $124 million and earn the interest over the 30 years. Not even factoring in the compounding if you could get 5% a year return on $100 million you’d get $6 million a year, that’s pretty much the payment you’d be waiting for (if you did a little better on the interest it’d be a lot more). Over 30 years that’s $150 million more. Even if you didn’t get that interest rate you’d still get significantly more even at 3%.