Latest Powerball jackpot cracks all-time top 10

If there is one winner of Wednesday night’s Powerball jackpot, they’d take home the tenth-largest prize ever given out.

The multi-state Powerball prize starts at $40 million and goes up from there, and it currently stands at $403 million.

After you buy it, you’ll want to make sure only you can claim the prize, so the first thing you’ll want to do is sign it. If you don’t, and you lose it, there won’t be any recourse for you to claim your prize if you win.

“If the silly criminal decides he wants to try to claim that prize, he’s going to have to alter the ticket,” Oregon Lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann said. “And we’ve got all sorts of smart people here at the lottery that will recognize that. And then there will be some questions asked.”

Baumann said the best thing you can do, if you end up winning all that money, is get a financial adviser. He might not need to tell you that, though, because Oregon has a good track record with handling lottery winnings.

“Here in Oregon, we’ve been really fortunate with our jackpot winners. They’re pretty wise — they’ve done that thing and went out and got a financial plan,” Baumann said.

If you do win, and want it all up front, your lump-sum total after taxes would be about $163 million. If you choose the 30-year annuity option, you’d get $270 million over that period.

Don’t get your hopes too high, though. The odds of winning the big prize are about one in 292 million. You have a better chance of dying by vending machine or conceiving quadruplets.

But interestingly, your odds are better for this lottery than they are for filling out a perfect NCAA basketball tournament bracket. The most generous odds given for that are one in 128 billion.