You’re not going to win the lottery. But if you do, read this.

With so much talk about the record Mega Millions jackpot, I thought I’d throw in my two cents:

First cent: You’re not going to win. The odds are ridiculous.

Second cent: If you should win this or any other windfall, even a much smaller one, you’ve got some work ahead of you.

If you’ve never had money, you may not realize how much effort it takes to manage it wisely–and not lose it. You don’t want to wind up like the folks featured in SmartMoney’s “Why lottery winners go bankrupt“–lottery winners who went bust, or even to jail.

So here’s my MSN column “You won the lottery. Now what?” When you don’t win, you can still read it for advice about what to do should any major windfall enter your life.