Imagine becoming vastly wealthy overnight. Being a winner of a multimillion dollar lottery has to be incredible. It certainly is going to be a life-changing event for almost every single lottery winner. But what about when the prize is an astronomical sum of $100 million, $300 million or even $500 million? Various Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries have reached vast sums and lotteries elsewhere in the country may as well.

Future Powerball and state lottery ticket winners will become incredibly wealthy in an instant. Imagine being Joe Somebody and turning into Sir Joe the Magnificent overnight. Now imagine the unthinkable that Sir Joe could become Joe the Village Idiot in a very short time. It has been widely reported that many lottery winners and many people who become filthy rich overnight end up broke again. That just doesn’t seem right at all.

24/7 Wall St. wants its readers, particularly those few who are lucky enough to win the lottery, to avoid some of the simple and complex mistakes that have taken other lottery winners into bankruptcy. Some lottery winners have even died under less than normal circumstances.

Updates around this hot topic have been more than eye-opening:

• NO WAY! $50 million lotto ticket remains unclaimed!!!
• One $168 million lotto winner was in the soup reportedly because of financial advice.
• China’s lottery IPO from 500.com

Click here to see what not to do if you hit it big.

24/7 Wall St. has decided to offer up 12 key things not to do if you are a lottery winner.

We have looked around at many research papers and other articles on the matter about those who land in instant riches against all odds, and we have even considered what the lottery sites has issued as their own warnings and winners. It seems too cruel to imagine that many winners become losers. There is a saying that you should only have to get rich once. Some people just cannot help themselves in avoiding the many pitfalls of instant wealth.

While many lists exist on what you should do if you win, it is surprising how few actual warnings are out there that can be used a scare-tactic guide that makes lottery winners do the right thing. Did you know that you might become a target if you are a lotto winner? Some people find instant enemies, and some people turn out to be their own worst enemy.

Spending it all is easier than you might think. It might have been very hard to spend $30 million in 30 days in “Brewster’s Millions” during the mid-1980s, but spending $10 million, $50 million, or even $100 million can be done easily now. Some people could even manage to spend that much just in a single day or two now.

Some points about what to do, or not do, may overlap or seem redundant. The problem is that there are many pitfalls which snag lottery winners who become vastly wealthy overnight or those who find themselves incredibly wealthy in a very short period. This list of tasks also has many lessons for those who win big legal judgments, who unexpectedly inherit millions of dollars, and for those who get sudden windfalls of cash from a business deal or a business sale.

Please take this to heart as you go over each point: If any of these lessons seem silly or overstated, please understand that you are already at risk of going broke if you ever become filthy rich overnight or in a short period of time.

Here are 12 things not to do if you win the lottery.