This past Saturday, it was announced that a Missourian purchased one of the winning Powerball tickets for the third-largest jackpot in history, a staggering $1.8 billion. Even if you’re like me and have never bought a ticket, it’s fun to imagine what life would be like as an overnight billionaire. Yet the truth is that the amount a winner actually receives is far less than the headline suggests.

The advertised jackpot assumes a single winner, but in this case two winning tickets were sold, one in Missouri and one in Texas, immediately cutting the prize in half to about $900 million each. To receive the full amount, the winner would need to accept 30 years of annual annuity payments funded by U.S. Treasury bonds. Nearly every winner instead chooses the lump sum, which reduces the payout by another 50 to 60 percent. Before taxes, that “$1.8 billion jackpot” may already be closer to $425 million.

Taxes take another significant bite. The IRS immediately withholds 24 percent in federal taxes, but with a top marginal rate of 37 percent, more will be due at filing time. Add in state taxes, up to 10 percent in places like New York or California and the final take-home figure could end up closer to $225 million.

Even then, the financial story doesn’t end. Big-ticket purchases such as luxury homes, yachts, and exotic cars carry ongoing costs for maintenance, insurance, staffing, and property taxes. Winners often spend millions more annually on lawyers and personal security as they become targets for lawsuits and crime. The personal consequences can be just as difficult. Sudden wealth has a way of straining marriages, fracturing friendships, and isolating winners from their communities. A UK study found that lottery winners had divorce and separation rates twice the national average within five years of their windfall.

Perhaps the most sobering cost is borne by those who never win. The odds of hitting the Powerball jackpot are one in 292 million, worse than the odds of being struck by lightning twice in a lifetime. Yet low-income households, who can least afford it, spend disproportionately on tickets. A Bankrate survey found that families earning under $30,000 a year spend an average of $412 annually on lottery tickets, while habitual players in this bracket may spend as much as $2,500 a year. That represents nearly 10 percent of their income chasing a dream that almost never comes true.

There is no doubt that the fantasy of sudden wealth is powerful, but the reality is sobering. The true jackpot of a successful life rarely comes through chance. It is built instead through slow, steady effort and disciplined financial decisions, the kind of wealth that stacks the odds in your favor without ever buying a ticket.

(Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The advice is general in nature and not intended for specific situations)