A few simple numbers — that's all you need to win the estimated $750 million Powerball lottery. Then all your dreams would come true, right? Maybe not.

A jackpot certainly would go a long way toward putting you on the path toward a fabulous life, but it's no guarantee of happiness or even permanent wealth.

A lot of lottery winners don't hold onto their riches forever, with plenty of winners sliding back into their old lifestyles within a few years.

Here's what to do, should sudden riches come your way:

1. Think first, don't act

Winning a huge sum potentially could alter everything about your life. It's not just about buying a new car or quitting your job, though all that can be significant enough. It also could change your relationships with friends and family members.

Almost everyone you know will suddenly want to be your best friend, with hands outstretched. They also might harbor feelings of jealousy or resentment toward you, and you might have your own feelings of guilt or disbelief.

Your best first move might be trying to anticipate how your life might change, for better or worse.

"It will be tempting to run out and splurge," said Dana Anspach, a certified financial planner at Sensible Money in Scottsdale. "Be patient and make a wish list before you start impulse buying."

While many states including Arizona won't let you remain anonymous, avoid unneeded publicity if you can. Explain to your spouse and kids what's going on, and tell them to be as discreet as possible. Don't post about your new wealth on Twitter or share a photo standing next to a shiny Rolls-Royce. Once your smiling mug is online, it's out there forever.

2. Lean toward the annuity

Lottery winners typically receive a choice of a lump sum or an annuity — a series of payments spread over many years. The lump sum sounds great, but the entire amount will be taxable when received.

More to the point, you will have more money entirely within your reach right now, which means you could squander it faster.

The lump sum for this week's $750 million Powerball is around $466 million.

The 30 annuity installments total around $750 million, with the first payment at $11.3 million and subsequent checks climbing gradually in value, said John Turner Gilliland, a spokesman for the Arizona Lottery.

An annuity spreads the largess, and tax bill, over many years. You might not be able to buy your own island or fleet of fancy sports car with the lower yearly amount. But you certainly could purchase a nice new home and a couple new vehicles — then repeat the process the next year, and the year after that. Plus, the immediate tax bill will be lower, though you might not wind up in a lower marginal bracket.

Some advisers recommend the lump sum, and that's fine. But if you fear you might blow through a big wad fast, take the annuity. Doing so also could give you reason to turn down gift requests from friends or relatives — you could plead (relative) poverty.

3. Start planning and paying off debts

As crazy as it sounds, you might want to draft a budget to see where your money could or should start going. Budgeting is just for poor folks, right? Not exactly. The world's biggest companies and everyone else in the corporate world routinely prepares budgets. Even affluent individuals must live within their means, which means spending less than they bring in.

That's what budgeting is all about.

But one step you probably can take, as soon as you start receiving checks representing your winnings, is to pay off debts, especially high-interest loans such as those on credit cards. Getting out of debt is a wonderful feeling, and it's within reach with a lottery win.

Besides, you stop the compounding clock that gets so many people into trouble — paying interest on accumulated interest, as on lingering credit card balances.

4. Keep the tax man in mind

One reason your money might start to feel like it's evaporating is that you will be sharing your winnings with Uncle Sam and, most likely, state tax authorities.

If you win a large jackpot, you probably will face the top federal rate of up to 37 percent, said Mike Finnegan, tax managing director in the Phoenix office of accounting/insurance firm CBIZ MHM.

Also, you will trigger immediate federal withholding of 24 percent — a rate that applies on even modest winnings above $5,000, he said. After the first year, you could be subject to making quarterly estimated payments.

Withholding and estimated payments aren't necessarily bad, as they will ease your tax burden when it comes time to file annual tax returns every April 15.

Incidentally, Arizona's top rate for individuals is 4.54 percent. If you win a jackpot while visiting another state, it's likely both states will want a share of the spoils. But you wouldn't double pay, as one state would take a credit against taxes imposed by the other, Finnegan said.

5. Build a financial team

Most likely, you will need some tax and investment help, and perhaps assistance with insurance, asset protection and other areas. That's why it's good to build a team of advisers who can provide guidance and, quite frankly, keep an eye on one another.

The core of your team should include an attorney, accountant and financial planner, said Anspach. She also considers hiring a certified coach with at least five years of experience to guide you through the coming changes and "onslaught of new emotions."

Be careful about turning over all control to one adviser, and don't shirk your responsibilities. If you don't yet know much about investing, insurance, taxes and the like, it's time to learn. In fact, it could be more urgent now than when you were poorer.

Referrals can be a good way to find advisers but be careful about affinity fraud, where people who belong to common groups such as a church all gravitate to the same professionals.

That was a key problem with the Bernie Madoff scam — he swindled people located through word-of-mouth referrals, especially in affluent Jewish communities on the East Coast.

6. Research your advisers

Given how much you will lean on professional guidance, it pays to put some effort into building your team. Finra, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, provides a free broker-evaluation service (brokercheck.finra.org) to find out whether an adviser is regulated, what his or her background is and whether there have been complaints.

It's a good first step.

Other helpful resources include the Financial Planning Association of Greater Phoenix (fpaofphoenix.org), the Arizona Society of Certified Public Accountants (ascpa.com) and the State Bar of Arizona (azbar.org).

If you win a jackpot as part of a pool of workplace pals, you will need to agree on things like whether to take the lump sum or annuity. For this reason, you might need an attorney to draft an agreement.

"The last thing you want to do is sue one another over payments," Finnegan said.

John Vryhof, an attorney at Snell & Wilmer in Phoenix, suggests using a CPA, attorney or other adviser to “run interference” on all solicitations, especially investment opportunities.

He also urges steps to protect your privacy, including possibly setting up anonymous asset-holding companies such as a limited liability company.

7. The money could run out

If you suddenly find yourself with millions of dollars within reach, you will be inclined to think you have unlimited riches. You don't. Many people who hit pay dirt blow through the money, sooner or later.

In one 2011 study, researchers at the University of Kentucky, University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University examined whether winning a jackpot would lead to permanent financial improvement. They focused on bankruptcy filings as a way to measure failure. They checked 35,000 winners in the Florida Lottery over a nine-year span.

Amazingly, relatively large winners in the context of this study, who received between $50,000 and $150,000, were just as likely to file for bankruptcy after several years as small winners of $1,000 or so. In other words, plenty of big winners spent all they won and then some. Larger winnings merely delayed bankruptcy for many of these people, the authors said.

About seven in 10 people who receive sudden wealth are likely to deplete it within several years, according to a separate study by the National Endowment for Financial Education. And there are plenty of tales of pro athletes hitting the skids.

Sports Illustrated once estimated that 78 percent of National Football League players go bankrupt or face serious financial stress within two years of ending their careers, while 60 percent of National Basketball Association players are broke within five years.

8. Give smartly

It might come as a surprise that giving away money or other gifts can be taxable. Your kid, nephew or best friend won't pay any tax if you hand over $5,000, but your estate might eventually.

Simply put, the portion of gifts exceeding $15,000 in a year to another person could be taxable to the donor's estate at death. (A married couple can double the tax-free portion of a gift to $30,000 yearly.)

Below those thresholds, you can make as many gifts to others as you want, without tax consequences. But above the thresholds, the amounts given will start eating into your overall estate- and gift-tax exemption of roughly $11 million per person at death.

Speaking of gifts, you probably will want to start spreading the largess to favorite charities. Two good places to research non-profit groups, with an eye on what they do and whether they use donations efficiently, are Guidestar.org and CharityNavigator.org.

9. Revisit or devise an investment plan

Chances are, you will have more money than you can spend, at least initially. That means you can save part in secure instruments like bank certificates of deposit while investing the rest in hopes of earning higher long-term results, with added risk.

Wealthier people generally gravitate toward a few key asset classes. This includes a diversified mix of stocks (including stock mutual funds), a portfolio of bonds and bond funds (including municipal securities that pay tax-free interest) and real estate.

One suggestion: Build your investment portfolio like a pyramid — holding most assets in a foundation of conservative instruments, with successively smaller amounts in stocks, real estate and other risky growth assets. At the peak, you could dabble a bit in speculative commodities, futures contracts or cryptocurrencies. Just don't overdo it.

With your diversified, balanced portfolio, here's a rule of thumb you should heed: Investors can expect to withdraw about 4 percent a year without seriously eroding their wealth over time.

This assumes that your stocks will appreciate and pay dividends, your bonds will pay interest and your real estate holdings will gain value and generate rents that, collectively and over time, meet or exceed those 4-percent withdrawals.

10. Protect your assets

With a lot of new wealth, you will need to consider strategies that were foreign, if not irrelevant, before. For example, you should look immediately into boosting your auto and homeowners insurance coverage amounts, possibly going for the extra protection provided by an umbrella policy.

You might want to start stuffing cash (within allowable limits) in an Individual Retirement Account, a vehicle that among other benefits provides some creditor protection. You even should try to spread your money around — not just by diversifying among investments but also dividing it among different banks.

That is, FDIC deposit insurance generally protects up to $250,000 per bank per person. But you can easily expand your protection by allocating the cash among different banks.

11. Think about your estate

Most Americans don't pay estate taxes, as the exemption amount has risen above $11 million per person (that doubles for a married couple who properly coordinate their affairs). But now that you have won the lottery, estate taxes could be an issue.

So too for other estate-planning considerations, such as whom you want to get the money when you're gone (sorry, you can't take it with you) and how quickly they should receive it. A living trust can be a good device to fulfill your wishes, especially if you have minor children or other recipients who might squander the riches if they got it all at once.

And there are other estate-planning documents you might need. These include financial and health powers of attorney, which direct trusted relatives or friends to act on your behalf in case you are unable to do so because of incapacity.

12. Focus on what matters

The funny thing about sudden wealth is that it can prove exhilarating for a while. But you probably won't elevate to a permanent state of enhanced happiness. In fact, you could be dragged down by your new responsibilities, by feelings of guilt or unworthiness, and from having to deal with friends and relatives in a constant state of need.

Studies have shown that greater wealth increases happiness to a point — $75,000 is often cited as a good figure to be above. But it's not like you become more and more euphoric as your assets continue to climb. Rather, happiness levels off even as wealth keeps rising.

But money certainly will buy greater freedom. What you do with it is up to you.

Reach the reporter at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8616.