“Winning the Lottery!”
It never ceases to amaze me how many people, who are on controlled budgets, give buying lottery tickets every week a high priority. The rationale generally falls into two distinct groups.
There are those who feel that, regardless of prior results, they think that this week will be their turn for the big win! Then there are those who simply buy tickets because “If you don’t play, you can’t win eh”!
What they all seem to have in common is the desire to win a large sum of money, and how happy they believe it would make them. Of course the whole lottery “advertising machine” encourages such thinking when, without exception (in my experience), all advertising focuses on self indulgent spending.
I find the whole lottery scene interesting because so many people are thinking nothing of spending $20-$25 a week on tickets. However, most of them would admit to a degree of excitement if they were given $1000.00. For some reason, the rationale does not holdup when you suggest that they stop buying tickets for a year; saved the money, and then gave themselves $1000.00 at year end!
It would appear therefore that while a $1000.00 gift would be nice, it is the $multi-million prizes that are the attraction. Again, I have to question the logic because there are so many examples of people forced into bankruptcy after a big win, simply because they spend with no thought for their resulting obligations. Moving into a multi-million dollar home dictates very high taxes and utilities plus the general upkeep of such properties! A luxury yacht is not a low maintenance item! Buying everybody a Rolls Royce car may well not be appreciated at vehicle service time.
Then there are those who have won multi-millions, and have decided to take a vacation while they decide what to do with it. Very often, it is decided to treat family and friends to small (relative to the win) value items such as pay off mortgages or buy cars. I am no accountant, but it is apparently very likely that a $multi-million win could be gaining more interest over a year than is being spent! People can literally have “more money than they know what do with”. Given all the new friends that they will undoubtedly have, and all the charities that will be in constant touch with them, it is highly unlikely that this will be a carefree and happy period in their life!
It seems to me that the ideal person to win a $multi-million lottery, is someone with a good basic knowledge of accounting and investments; someone with business experience, and someone with a philanthropic perspective. As far as I can deduce, that person would have a chance of being happy as a result of a big win but then, would that person actually buy lottery tickets?