What Could You Spend Lottery Winnings On In Your State?

What You Could Buy If You Won the Lottery in Every State

How Big of A Home Would Lottery Winnings Get You?

Winning the lottery could get you a dream home, but the size of that home varies substantially depending on where you live. Here’s a look at the extremes and averages:

• Mississippi: You could buy a home that is 54,726 sq. ft. (about the size of the White House!), making it the largest potential new home of any state in the study.
• Average size across all states: 29,722 sq. ft.
• Hawaii: With the same winnings, the largest home you could buy is 6,420 sq. ft.

Real estate is all about location, but the quantity difference in acreage you could purchase from state to state is really something when you put it into perspective. That home in Hawaii, while still three times larger than an average house, is about 750% smaller than the one you could buy in Mississippi.

Clearing debts can be life-changing. But how many people could you help with your lottery winnings? Depends on where you live.

• West Virginia: You could completely clear the debt of 132 people, most in the study
• Average across all states: 86 people.
• Washington, D.C.: You could clear the debt of only 45 people

Debt per capita shifts regionally because you often have to borrow money to access great educational opportunities or settle down in a more glamorous area. But no matter where you live, your lottery winnings could go a long way in helping people pay off their debts.

Groceries are a daily necessity, and lottery winnings could cover your food costs for years and years and years to come.

• Iowa: You could purchase 402 years of groceries, enough to last until the year 2426.
• Average across all states: 348 years.
• Alaska: You could buy groceries for 276 years, from now until the year 2300.

That’s a lot of groceries. Even in the most expensive states, you’d be covered for 276 years of food. For context, that’s 28 years longer than the U.S. has been a country. A lot has changed since then and it makes you wonder what grocery stores will look like in the 24th century.

We didn’t just stop at houses, debt, and groceries. We priced out several different purchases to provide some context on what winning the lottery looks like. To see what other purchases you could make with your lottery winnings in your state, check out the table below.

We didn’t want to stop the cost analysis there, so we found other national average costs to further illustrate just how much you could get if you won the lottery. From beer and streaming subscriptions to European vacations and college tuition, here’s what your lottery winnings could buy.

If you won the lottery, you could…

• Buy about 680,000 beers. Enough to stock your fridge for years or throw one massive party.
• Purchase nearly 8,724 years of streaming. Binge-watch your favorite shows and movies for over eight millennia.
• Secure 530 Olympic experience tickets. You and 529 of your closest friends could get to experience the thrill of the Games together.
• Put about 130 people through 4 years of college. Cover tuition and fees for dozens of students, making a lasting impact.
• Take 1,113 European vacations. Travel across Europe and create unforgettable memories more times than you could ever actually want to
• Buy either 15 homes or about 140 cars. Invest in a substantial amount of real estate or enjoy a fleet of vehicles.

If you win the lottery you could buy a lot of pretty much anything. All that’s left after you match those numbers and take home your winnings (after taxes) is to decide where the money should go.

Well, there you have it. Winning big can go a long way. Hitting the lottery can transform your life, but what that transformation looks like depends heavily on where you live. Whether you’re dreaming of a massive home, wiping out debts, or just stocking up on groceries for four centuries, the value of your winnings varies across the U.S. From a sprawling estate in Mississippi to a slightly more modest Hawaiian home, the same $5 million can look very different.

At BetMGM, we understand the thrill of the gamble. Just like buying a lottery ticket, playing your favorite casino games is about taking a chance for the possibility of some massive wins. Our online slot games offer the excitement of these opportunities every day, giving you the chance to seriously cash out. Not unlike winning the lottery.

To determine how far the lottery would get you in every state, we found the average lottery tax in every state and applied it to a scenario where someone won $5M from a mega millions jackpot. 

We then found the cost of different purchases on a state level and determined how many of each someone who just won the lottery could afford. Purchases in this group include the number of homes, cars, and years of groceries lottery winnings would afford you.

We also found average prices on a national level for certain purchases to further illustrate how far lottery winnings could go after taxes in every state. This includes European vacations, years of streaming, and beers.

There are five states that don’t have lotteries of any kind (Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah). We included these states in our analysis and just applied the national average lottery tax for comparison purposes.

For a full list of the costs we analyzed, see the table below.