California Lottery

Your article on the California Lottery was quite informative, but omitted to state who gets the money.

I don’t mean the pittance to the schools, or the costs of advertising, salaries, etc. I mean the money--the millions that are reserved for prize winners.

The way I look at it, a winner of $1 million gets $50,000 per year for 20 years, so after the first payment, there is $950,000 in the pot. At the end of the initial year (at a mere 6% interest) this has grown to $1,007,000. After making 20 payments of $50,000 each, there still remains $1,236,320 in the bank.

My question is--who gets the money?

SANDY KAHN, Calabasas