Do you personally know a big-time lotto winner ($10 million +)?

I sort of know a guy who won $17 million in 2006. He is a shipping supervisor. Lucky guy...he is also pretty paranoid. Not sure if he was like that before.

I'm not terribly impressed with lottery winners. Playing the lottery is stupid and winning it certainly isn't an accomplishment of any kind.

It's so sad to see these those shows on Discovery and TLC about lottery winners...95% of them win these unbelievable amounts of money and just have no idea what to do with it. They end up spending it on the most worthless things (garages filled with 20 cars??) and some even end up broke. What a waste.

Well, people think it's a ton of money, so they blow through it. It's like the post above that they "only" won $4mil. I don't know if that's after lump sum and taxes or before, but if it's before:

$4mil -> $1mil. That really is not life changing...but people change their lives for a few years, blow through the money and are back at square one.

I work with a guy that got the first 5 numbers, but missed the Powerball.

Personal happiness is actually seen as a personality trait to some degree. Personality traits are enduring and change little from when they are developed in childhood. Generally speaking, 6 months later people who win the lotto are not much happier. Its all based on people percieving that money = happiness, which studies show has little relationship.

marijuologist wrote:

I'm not terribly impressed with lottery winners. Playing the lottery is stupid and winning it certainly isn't an accomplishment of any kind.

Um, it's not about being impressive. It's about never having to work another day in your life and never having to worry about supporting your kids, their kids, and if you play it right, their kids.

I know a guy who won the lottery as part of a family deal. I figured if he and his wife got equal shares they got about 15-20 million between them.

On a scale of 1-10, I know him about a 5, both before and after the win. He seems to me (I still socialize with him and mutual friends) not to have really changed. He was not poor to begin with. His kids get to go see Hannah Montana in Dallas and he gets to sail in the Bahamas, but he really doesn't seem too different to me.

He has gained a couple of pounds.

I worked the summer of 1985 in a paper cup factory. The supervisor of my department had won $3 million in the previous year, and continued working six days a week, often floating among shifts. (The factory operated around the clock.) I didn't understand it then, and I don't now, either. Maybe he just really liked being in a loud, dark, dirty factory.

I'm an estate planning attorney and I have personally had two clients who were lottery winners. Both won 3-4 million dollars. The first guy was a samll business owner and he used the money in a very disciplined fashion and has set his family up very nicely for years to come. The second guy was a factory worker and winning the lottery was probably the worst thing that ever happened to him. He spent it all on cars, boats and crack whores. He crashed a car, messed up his leg and became addicted to coke himself. He blew through all the money and now is probably much worse off than if he had just remained a working stiff all his life. During a lucid day we were able to get him to set aside $100,000 in an irrevocable trust for his son. Other than that, it's gone. Having all that money thrown on you just magnifies the personality traits you bring to the table in the first place.

...but smoking reefer IS? Riiiiiiight.

$220,000,000 THIS TUESDAY. Ka-Ching!!!!

Yeah, I know millions of lottery winners. We all won the mega-lottery, not just by virtue of being born, but by virtue of being born in the USA where anyone can, by not succumbing to the victimization propaganda, getting educated, working extremely diligently and productively, and following the basic type of financial, but not political, advice that people like Flagpole Willy dole out on here. And, if you become extremely astute with your investing, you can do much better than what the generic financial lessons teach you.

Sam Cortes (age 56) the one of the Best Master Runners in the world (from Illinois) won the Lotto but I am not sure now much?

You mean insider trading, right?

Sagarin wrote:

Yeah, I know millions of lottery winners. We all won the mega-lottery, not just by virtue of being born, but by virtue of being born in the USA where anyone can, by not succumbing to the victimization propaganda, getting educated, working extremely diligently and productively, and following the basic type of financial, but not political, advice that people like Flagpole Willy dole out on here. And, if you become extremely astute with your investing, you can do much better than what the generic financial lessons teach you.

Now that is exactly correct. Nice job there Sagarin.

The average lottery player spends $32 a week on lottery tickets.

That's $1,664 a year. From age 20 to age 65 that's $74,880.

Invest that money in a mutual fund and at age 65 instead you'd have $1,041,435.63.

Since you pay for lottery tickets with after tax dollars, you could do the same and have that money in a Roth IRA which would mean that upon retirement you'd have over a million dollars tax free. Stout.

And that's just $32 a week. Do several hundred a month and you're talking multimillionaire AND retiring before age 65.

I play most of the Massachusetts games. Not every day, but regularly. I've missed $100K by 1 digit 5 times, I missed $2M by one digit once and the old Mass Millions game ($12M) by one digit plus the bonus number.

If I hit I'd keep a VERY LOW PROFILE. Sock it away in a low-risk, tax-deferred annuity. Keep things under wraps, but probably get a newer house (with a garage...yea!) or upgrade my current one, maybe get a SMALL place in FL or AZ for the winter months. I'd probably have to work hard to keep the grin off my face, more than anything else.

I'd vacation more, instead of a 3-day weekend here and there. My widowed mother would be well cared for (she has to live with me for health reasons, which beats the crap out of my personal life) and I'd offer my brother something, but he's doing OK on his own.

I'd do some low-key charity donating and would be able to train more. I'd still mow my own lawn, take out the trash, wash the car and all that...gotta stay real, keep the ego under control.

I'd be curious to see if my popularity with the opposite sex would change drastically. Now THAT would be potentially interesting.

Not me, although I did once win $15 in the Powerball. Tried not to blow it all at once on cappuccinos. ;)

I don't buy tickets that often, maybe once in a while if I'm in the mood or the jackpot is especially large.

I hope I'd be smart about it if I did win a lot of $. I'd start by consulting a financial adviser I could trust, so I'd make good investments, give some to family members, some to charity, and have some fun with some of it. I'd work but at something I cared about regardless of money (maybe some type of volunteer work): a balance between helping myself and others.

I'd travel to some places I've wanted to see, though not going all out in luxury. I'd be easily able to visit family members and friends in different parts of the country.

The things I consider luxuries now I probably still would if I had millions: being able to just browse around in a bookstore and buy whatever interested me; or buy running gear I like--although honestly, I make running clothes last a pretty long time... mostly I prefer to spend the money on shoes and race entries. Most importantly, I think the money would buy time to do what I most enjoy and value, time to spend with family and friends, time to run and swim, things of that type.

I think that a person needs to start with some basic values or money will just bowl them over. Happens to new pro athletes sometimes. They suddenly have much more money than they ever did and yet are barely out of their teens.

I was a valet parking attendant at the Fitzgerald's Hotel-Casino in Reno during the summer of 1989. Fun job, lots of running.

One day a van full of people pulls up. You know the type of van I am talking about, one of the old "conversion" types of vans that were popular in the 1970's, carpeted floors, leather easy chairs, carpeted ceiling, stereo and fridge in the back. But this one was falling apart, complete with patches of primer on the side panels. If someone pulled up in this van and said "You need a ride?" you would probably want to start running about 60 second 400 pace. Anyway I digress...

The people stagger out of the van, drunk, and I get to park it. I find out that the are celebrating, and that they are from Sacramento, and they had a big plastic check from the California Lottery. They won about US$1,000,000.

Of course, we parking attendants thought that we were going to get a nice tip. Instead we got nothing. A$$holes.

I parked many kinds of cars that summer, including a Rolls Royce. Guy gave us $1.00. The biggest tip we got, US$100, was from a old guy in a beat up Toyota celica.

I know a guy who along with his mom won $10.5 million tax free, lump sum, lotto 649 in Canada. He actually kept working for a bit at the running store he was at. He was a very solid nice guy. Haven't seen him for a few years.

I used to be a financial advisor and had a client who won $1 million. The natural instinct is that you have to spend it all right away but with solid advice they can invest most of it then buy stuff later with earnings.

I'm in on some mega millions with a friend in California. The fun is planning what you would buy. I'm in for $5 per draw. There is room for some high risk, high reward in every portfolio!