# Some people just can't handle money. Crazy!



## liquidfinance (Jan 28, 2011)

Some people are just not meant to have money :cower:

How can you blow $10,000,000

Even in a standard savings account from one of the big 5 you're talking $120,000 a year! :hopelessness:

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/21/hamilton_lottery_winner_fritters_away_10_million.html


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## iherald (Apr 18, 2009)

*"Money is the root of all evil" - Winner of $10 million lotto who is broke in 5 years*

I saw this article in the Toronto Star today about a recent winner of the lotto who won 10 million and ended up with houses (with a mortgage), 5 cars, millions to friends and family, and all of a sudden is broke. She suggests that money is the root of all evil.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/21/hamilton_lottery_winner_fritters_away_10_million.html

I don't condone what she did with her money, at least she is not back on welfare, she is working. That said, what do you do to help people? I saw a documentary about how a majority of athletes are bankrupt within a few years of retirement after making millions. I think education is key, but probably in the school system not an obligation of the NBA or Lotto Corp.


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

We need to make personal finance a required course in high school. It's shocking how many people have no clue at all what to do with money or how to save it.


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## Dibs (May 26, 2011)

I think winning the lottery is a curse in disguise - it creates much more headaches than it solves. Even if you wanted to preserve your capital and invest it rationally, you would have deal with everyone asking for a share of the money and that is something that I'd rather not deal with.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Really, pro athletes should have some kind of pension scheme. They contribute half their income and get a stream of payments from their retirement date. People like athletes and lottery winners are prime marks for 'long-lost' friends and family's sob stories and business ventures.

Even with lotteries, I think you have the option of taking a stream of payments over time, which is probably a better idea for most people.


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## liquidfinance (Jan 28, 2011)

I just posted the same story 

http://canadianmoneyforum.com/showthread.php/15173-Some-people-just-can-t-handle-money-Crazy!

I can't believe it. Especially buying a house with a mortgage! Why? :rolleyes2:


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

When younger I used to ponder the adage "A fool and his/(her) money are soon parted" and wondered how the fool obtained the money in the first place......since then I've learned the answer.....lotteries.

"Stupid is, as stupid does"...as, I believe, Forrest Gump's mother used to say.


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## Ethan (Aug 8, 2010)

“So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

“When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor – your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?"

-Francisco D'Anconia


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## blin10 (Jun 27, 2011)

i'd buy 10mil worth of stocks that pay 4%+ divi and live on $33000/month+ lol... how do people go broke puzzles me, you have to be complete idiot to blow it all like that


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

jack whittaker-anybody ever read about him?He won the powerball in the states(tragic story also)what was funny was he was a self-made millionaire before he won his powerball......goggle him for a good read on this topic.This story seems to play out over and over again.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

Similar story in the BBC recently:

Lottery winner on how he lost £1.8m in financial crash


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

At least she gave a lot to other people and helped people pay rent and such. it wasn't all completely wasted.

These stories are always sad though, I'd never tough the money and simply live off the proceeds of the original balance


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

The vast majority of lottery winners do just fine with their money. It's the occasional nut who gets the media attention for screwing it up.

Successful athletes are a special case in my opinion - not only do they get tons of money and fame fairly quickly, they are usually pretty young too. Tough combination.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

Addy said:


> We need to make personal finance a required course in high school. It's shocking how many people have no clue at all what to do with money or how to save it.


I know I took high school finance, and the people teaching it probably know less than me. A lot of teenagers are not ready to hear the lessons at that time, I had a great financial upbringing but in my teens and young adult hood, I was really irresponsble with money. I don't think I was ready to hear it until I was in university. Maybe that's the time to really educate. Also, it really is up to the parents to teach kids money values. 




Dibs said:


> I think winning the lottery is a curse in disguise - it creates much more headaches than it solves. Even if you wanted to preserve your capital and invest it rationally, you would have deal with everyone asking for a share of the money and that is something that I'd rather not deal with.


Money and the lottery is not a curse, it's attitudes. You can say the same with people that make it really big on their own accord. I know many self made multi millionaires who did some fantastic things and couple of lottery winners. All of them said people started coming out of the wood work, the difference is that they had a head on their shoulders and set up a plan with their money. There are many lottery winners who do not blow it away, it comes down to what their values were before. There was documentary that followed the lives of a dozen big lottery winners, and tried to correlate happiness with money. What they found with the people that were happy before stayed happy, and merely used the winnings as tool, the ones that were unhappy, most of them found it headaches or blew it away. The biggest thing I took out of the show was that one cannot allow outside forces to dictate happiness, and it's your internal make up that defines alot of this stuff.

I personally would love the headache of winning a lottery. If anyone wins, I will be happy to take the curse off your hands. 



andrewf said:


> Really, pro athletes should have some kind of pension scheme. They contribute half their income and get a stream of payments from their retirement date. People like athletes and lottery winners are prime marks for 'long-lost' friends and family's sob stories and business ventures.
> 
> Even with lotteries, I think you have the option of taking a stream of payments over time, which is probably a better idea for most people.


I loved this article with an interview with Wayne Gretzky
http://www.moneysense.ca/2012/12/24/the-payoff-know-your-strengths/

This is what atheletes and rock stars need, someone to guide them that has a head on their shoulders. He should start another foundation to do this for people, maybe people will listen.


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## CanadianCapitalist (Mar 31, 2009)

donald said:


> jack whittaker-anybody ever read about him?


I just did. Very sad story, especially what happened to his grand daughter.

Lottery Winner Jack Whittaker's Losing Ticket


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Winning a lottery DOUBLES your chance of bankruptcy (at least in Florida, according to one recent study). 

Florida keeps great stats on lottery winners, and some economists decided to study what happens when people come into large sums of money (known as a "shock" in econospeak). 

The results were not what they expected, but explain the news results being quoted in this thread:

http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/why-lottery-winners-go-bankrupt-1301002181742/


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## Koala (Jan 27, 2012)

It's not just lottery winners, but also those given money from family:
http://www.calgarysun.com/2013/03/12/lethbridge-cops-lay-charges-against-matthew-robillard-for-allegedly-faking-his-own-abduction

There were more than just poor financial decisions as well!


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## liquidfinance (Jan 28, 2011)

CanadianCapitalist said:


> Similar story in the BBC recently:
> 
> Lottery winner on how he lost £1.8m in financial crash



Yeah there are plenty of them. 

Here is another fine example....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ichael-Carroll-dole-squandering-millions.html


and this was his house 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...arroll-sell-wrecked-mansion-600-000-loss.html


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

I remembered commenting about this on another site almost 8 years ago.......Googled it, and here's the original:



> A few years ago a drunk living in a trailer park in Youbou, BC, won a million or so..............purchased a park, motorized toys, booze, booze, booze.............had a bunch of 'friends' until he, literally, pissed it all away.


 The more things change, an' all that.


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

liquidfinance said:


> Some people are just not meant to have money :cower:
> 
> How can you blow $10,000,000
> 
> ...


You, ahhh... missed a zero there. Only noteworthy due to the topic!


Reading the stories though, it really seems there is a pretty common theme. Terrible life choices before the money, terrible life choices with the money, slightly better life choices after the money is pretty much gone.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

MoneyGal said:


> Winning a lottery DOUBLES your chance of bankruptcy (at least in Florida, according to one recent study).


No, it doesn't. The fact that lottery winners have a higher bankruptcy rate than the general population doesn't mean that winning the lottery is the reason. Although you would think that winning the lottery should remove any possibility of future bankruptcy.

Not everybody plays the lottery. They should have compared the numbers to the bankruptcy rates of all lottery players - not the general population.



MoneyGal said:


> Florida keeps great stats on lottery winners, and some economists decided to study what happens when people come into large sums of money (known as a "shock" in econospeak).
> 
> The results were not what they expected, but explain the news results being quoted in this thread:
> 
> http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/stocks/why-lottery-winners-go-bankrupt-1301002181742/


Very interesting article. The 1% bankruptcy figure seems reasonable. I'm sure there are a few more percent of winners that mishandle their winnings but don't go bankrupt.

I get tired of idiots like Dave Ramsey who says things like "65% of Lotto winners are bankrupt within 15 years.".


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Um. You should read the original study. Which I have.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

MoneyGal said:


> Um. You should read the original study. Which I have.


So have I.


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## purple.platypus (Dec 10, 2012)

crazyjackcsa said:


> You, ahhh... missed a zero there. Only noteworthy due to the topic!


His math looks fine to me. 1.2%(the typical "high"-interest savings account interest rate at the big 5) of 10 million is $120k, as he says.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I know many people who have six figure monthly incomes in the poker circuit who have to borrow money to get into a big game in WSOP. I go to several affiliate conferences every year where people make millions and i would say at least 50-60% are very stupid with their money .I have done stupid stuff myself over the years like paying $116,000 for a car or buying a $50,000 ring but before I spend a dime I have all my savings , investments ,etc covered every month.Some people just can't handle money no matter how much they have.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

I do think some people do fine with smaller quantities of money but when presented with a big pot of money it seems endless so they are more apt to spend more and not monitor it.

This is a pretty well-documented trait in humans: there was a famous series of studies at Cornell (replicated a number of times by other researchers with the same results) showing that if you give people a huge tub of stale, barely edible popcorn they will eat about 30% more popcorn than people who are given a small tub of the same popcorn. Even though the popcorn itself tasted terrible: they ate more because there was more to eat. Similarly people tend to spend more when there is more to spend.

One way around this is to find ways to turn the big pot of money into lots of smaller pots (e.g., in a budget, or in separate accounts earmarked for specific things) or to make smaller pots available incrementally while the big pot sits somewhere that's hard to access.


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## Squash500 (May 16, 2009)

She should have hired a trusted advisor or accountant etc right after she received her winnings. IMHO no excuse how she could have blown all that money.


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## Squash500 (May 16, 2009)

CanadianCapitalist said:


> I just did. Very sad story, especially what happened to his grand daughter.
> 
> Lottery Winner Jack Whittaker's Losing Ticket


Wow...that's quite a story. Thanks for posting it.


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

There was also a girl who won $3.67 million when she was 16 and spent it all on drugs, booze, and boyfriends in a few years and is now broke.

http://www.news.com.au/world-old/ca...o-spending-spree/story-e6frfkyi-1225767965117


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

Is there any way to hide it if you won the lottery? Maybe collect the money under a fake name?

I imagine lottery winners get a lot of requests for help, both from family and strangers. Everything from "please help me I'm down on my luck" to "I got this brilliant business idea you should invest in!".

I guess you could always change your name legally after winning.


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

purple.platypus said:


> His math looks fine to me. 1.2%(the typical "high"-interest savings account interest rate at the big 5) of 10 million is $120k, as he says.


Yeah, I re-read it and misunderstood it. Since the math was so close I took it to read: "You would have to withdraw that much to be broke in 10-years." That number is about 1.2-million.


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## lonewolf (Jun 12, 2012)

Anyone that buys lottery tickets in my opinion waists money. It does not surprise that so many lottery winners go broke.

Schools do not have to many that are qualified to teach about money with the pensions teachers get.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

lonewolf said:


> Anyone that buys lottery tickets in my opinion waists money.



We knowingly waste money on lottery tickets.
We write a cheque for $52 to father in law every year at Christmas to keep up in the family lottery pool.
We also participate in a lottery pool at mt wife's work place - about $20 a month. I think there are around 40 people in the pool.
I say about because their rules are that free tickets and winnings under $1000 get put back into the pool and then there is a bit of a contributions holiday.

At my company about 7 years ago there was a group that did ok. The participants ecach ended up with about $6,000. 

The reason we do pools is that it would burn our *** to see others we know that we interact with on an ongoing basis to hit it rich on random chance without us being along for the ride.


We on the other hand are working our way to being sure fire well off through a relentless mix of frugality, savings and investing.

I have never worked at a place with pensions, just grsp's. I have always, from the first day I got a full time pay cheque, saved some of it. 
The early years statements are kind of funny to look back at.

Boy, I was proud to max out my RRSP contribution the first year I was working full time.
I could finally contribute against all of the bits of taxable income I had built contribition room agains while working part time jobs before graduating. 
It was only about $3000 but it was the first $3k to what has now grown to almost 300x that amout though additional contributions, reinvested tax refunds flowing from rrsp contributions, and investment growth.


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

I think what people under estimate is how much pressure(& guilt?)Family member's and friends would have on one if one won the lottery(not to mention the envy)
They say people change when they come into or build wealth but id say more than that the people your close with changes even more towards you?(and not in a good way).Pondering you make a interesting quote-''It would burn our *** to see others we know that we interact with on a ongoing basis to hit it rich on a random chance without us being along for the ride"THIS is human nature and why the greatest threat to a instant millionaire is family and friend's(a sense of unfair responsibilty/burden)placed on the winner!and exactly why ''they'' get brought down imo(underlying reason in all these stories)


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## 6811 (Jan 1, 2013)

My wife and I started out with nothing and I think we've managed to put aside enough for our modest needs in our retirement. While I don't buy lottery tickets very often, I have always thought that if I did win big that I would give half to my family. I don't presume to speak for anyone else but I wouldn't feel right about accepting monetary or expensive gifts from my friends and I'd expect the same attitude from them.


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## donald (Apr 18, 2011)

Could you imagine though how much it would change relationships.(maybe im looking at it for my age demo)close friends......the envy(unspoken or not)would be huge,I know some in my peer group that have ''envy'' of others that make slightly more than them(i couldnt imagine what that would be like if you won 8 figures)It would be sure to wreak at the very lest a few relationships.And im sure you would have to wrestle with a lot of guilt as a winner.
One's personal relationships would def be the downside to sudden wealth-i can't see how it would be a positive outcome in that realm.


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## purple.platypus (Dec 10, 2012)

I knowingly waste money in this way.

I view it as part of the entertainment budget and not even remotely as part of the funds (more than half of my current take-home pay) that go to debt reduction, savings and investments. I've gotten a couple wins of around $100 and quite a few around $10 (I don't view a free ticket or a prize smaller than $10 as a win, it's usually a break-even or a case of losing less than usual!), so it has an occasional payoff, but what I really see myself as paying for is the license to think about what I'd do in the admittedly extremely unlikely event of a big win. As I say, entertainment.

Let's just say "lose it all in a few years on hookers and blow" is NOT part of any of those fantasies.

In fact, while I won't say the lotteries have been a net positive for my financial life because I'm sure an honest accounting would show that they're not, I _will_ say that those fantasies sometimes help me get clear on what my priorities really are and have had a bit of mostly positive influence on my spending, saving and investment habits. Sometimes I go "if I spend this money now, I'm that much further away from (insert one of my more modest lottery fantasies here) - is that really worth it?" and put something back on the shelf. After all, over the next few years I could quite realistically grind out, if not the equivalent of a major jackpot, at least the equivalent of a 5+bonus win on the 6/49. I'm just doing it a bit at a time rather than all at once.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

purple.platypus said:


> Let's just say "lose it all in a few years on hookers and blow" is NOT part of any of those fantasies.


In some ways platypus, we are very different people.... and I'm not talking about how you look like a duck face on a gopher.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Read some of those links and stories, friggin' sad.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

It's pretty hard for me to understand these horror stories of people squandering the fruits of what should make for a life of less stress, greater lifestyle and philanthropy. 

We tend to read and hear about the small minority of situations where it goes very bad for these "winners", and not the majority whose lifestyle is enhanced.


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## 6811 (Jan 1, 2013)

RBull said:


> It's pretty hard for me to understand these horror stories of people squandering the fruits of what should make for a life of less stress, greater lifestyle and philanthropy.
> 
> We tend to read and hear about the small minority of situations where it goes very bad for these "winners", and not the majority whose lifestyle is enhanced.


Well said. Couldn't agree more.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

RBull said:


> and not the majority whose lifestyle is enhanced.


We buy 6/49 tickets........the little it costs us doesn't affect our finances one iota.....but, if we won, and tonight's draw, IIRC, is $15million, we'd give ~ 2/3rds of it away to friends & relatives.....none of whom, I'll wager, would urinate it up against a wall........so numerous lives would receive a positive impact.


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## underemployedactor (Oct 22, 2011)

The woman in the article is misquoting (as most people do) 1 Timothy 6:10 "_For the love of money _is the root of all evil which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pieced themselves through with many sorrows"
Her failure wasn't that she loved money too much - she didn't love it at all - it's that she loved and trusted the wrong people and squandered her money on them. It seems losing the money doesn't bug her so much as the way she was manipulated by friends. Those are sorrows that really pierce.


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## pwm (Jan 19, 2012)

I'm 63 years young and I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life. By my reasoning I'm an instant winner every time. My winnings are the price of the ticket I didn't buy.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

6811 said:


> Well said. Couldn't agree more.


Thanks.


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## RBull (Jan 20, 2013)

I don't buy tickets directly but over the years have been involved in some group pools. Sharing with those you care about is a worthy and noble action indeed. 




Nemo2 said:


> We buy 6/49 tickets........the little it costs us doesn't affect our finances one iota.....but, if we won, and tonight's draw, IIRC, is $15million, we'd give ~ 2/3rds of it away to friends & relatives.....none of whom, I'll wager, would urinate it up against a wall........so numerous lives would receive a positive impact.


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## Nemo2 (Mar 1, 2012)

RBull said:


> Sharing with those you care about is a worthy and noble action indeed.


Our 'philosophy' is that over and above a certain amount, (from which we'd likely live off interest generated and never touch the principal), any monies from a (highly unlikely), major win would be of no use to us anyway, (we have zero desire to purchase Ferraris or McMansions, although we would take more African safaris), so, (in our self amusing fantasies), we'd divvy it up.

Not particularly 'noble or worthy', I'm afraid, because _our_ slice would always come off the top.


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## purple.platypus (Dec 10, 2012)

I figure at least a quarter, and maybe much more, of any massive win (say $2M or more) on my part would go to various charities, but I'd want to take some time to do research on which ones. One possibility would be to make it known that I'm buying $X million in, say, six-month T-bills, and interested parties have until the maturity date to make their case; on that day, I divvy the proceeds (including the increase in value) up, not necessarily equally, among the five or six I consider worthiest. At the higher end I'd probably set up some sort of foundation others who shared by goals could donate to.

Giving to friends and family is iffier because I don't want the pressure or culture of dependance that shows up in a lot of these lottery nightmare stories. My immediate family would certainly get an amount that they could derive significant and lasting benefits from, but accompanied by a very serious conversation about how it's going to be used. Friends... anything bigger than picking up the tab when we go for dinner would have to be reserved for concrete, specific goals I consider worthy, and never more than low five figures under any circumstances. These strictures could be relaxed if someone particularly impresses me with their responsibility, both financial and social. "I've got this business idea I could really use you as a silent partner in" would be listened to but treated _very_ skeptically, and I certainly wouldn't throw any significant percentage of my net worth behind any one such venture. They can still enjoy my money by visiting my awesome new house with all the awesome new stuff in it .

Then again, this is likely one of those things that you don't _really_ know the effects of until it happens. I'll almost certainly never know whether I would actually keep my head as level as described above if this were really to happen.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Lottery tickets are a tax on people who are bad at math. Why be surprised they aren't any smarter after they get the money? Besides who says they are wrong. I heard of a guy in this area who won a multimillion dollar prize, abandoned his home family and business and died 3 or 4 months later. I hope he left in a Ferrari going 200 miles an hour and died in Las Vegas with a champagne bottle in one hand and a whore's tit in the other.


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## none (Jan 15, 2013)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Lottery tickets are a tax on people who are bad at math. Why be surprised they aren't any smarter after they get the money? Besides who says they are wrong. I heard of a guy in this area who won a multimillion dollar prize, abandoned his home family and business and died 3 or 4 months later. I hope he left in a Ferrari going 200 miles an hour and died in Las Vegas with a champagne bottle in one hand and a whore's tit in the other.


Hey if you're going to cash out in a blaze of glory and shame that's not a bad way to do it.


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## randomthoughts (May 23, 2010)

Hm, the most interesting point here is disagreement between two posters, both of whose arguments I normally accept with minimal scrutiny. They're probably both too civilized to argue it out here. I'd have to do my own research and come up with my own conclusion. Dreadful, and I refuse! 

Buying lotto tickets is stupid but understandable. I include myself - I contribute to the work lotto pool. I did try to convince them that we should just buy a single ticket, but my math (x * 0 = 0 chance of winning) was not persuasive.

Try this hilarious stunt... when you're with a friend who is buying tix, start railing to the vendor about how s/he's spending the kid's food money on gambling. One of my friends did this to another - I nearly DIED laughing. It got totally out of hand - "what are we going to eat and if you touch me again, I'm calling the cops!"


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## fraser (May 15, 2010)

I buy the odd lottery ticket. It is worth the price of the small 'flutter' to have some fun imagining what one would do with the proceeds. Purely entertainment value.

I think that those who do have a significant win and quicklygo broke spending the entire proceeds have a challenge that goes beyond personal financial management. It really encompasses what one might call 'making the right life choices'.

I know a number of people who have few asset or streams of income at a later stage in life. This did not happen because they did not have well paying jobs/carreers or opportunities to secure same but rather because they had a fairly consistent history of not making good life choices-financial, personal, etc

One of those life choices for a lottery winner would be to secure the services of a qualified financial manager, a good estate planner, and a good lawyer. That would be just after disconnecting the phone and quickly moving to a new address in order to retain some privacy in the interim.


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

Ponderling said:


> The reason we do pools is that it would burn our *** to see others we know that we interact with on an ongoing basis to hit it rich on random chance without us being along for the ride.


Agreed. I call it my "stupid" fee, as in a way to not feel stupid for the rest of my life for not participating. The loss of $2/week is less than the lifetime of feeling stupid I'll feel so I gladly pay it and don't care if I lose.

I'm convinced the week I stop is the week they win. It's irrational, I know.

It is fun though, the laughs we all get, the silly emails about winning, or losing, or our sucky streaks, or whatever it is that cracks us up or makes us smile. For $2 a week, it's money well invested.


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## 44545 (Feb 14, 2012)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...times-Stanford-University-statistics-PhD.html

For some, apparently, the lottery is an opportunity to which applying considerable brain power can make you a lot of money.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Don't need to go all the way to Stanford to find a code-cracker; we have (at least) one here in Toronto: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/ (note that he trained at Stanford, though!)


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

MoneyGal said:


> Don't need to go all the way to Stanford to find a code-cracker; we have (at least) one here in Toronto: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/ (note that he trained at Stanford, though!)


That is a fascinating story.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

And I've probably never even written here about the years I spent closely involved in the casino industry! (No joke.)


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## Robillard (Apr 11, 2009)

I wonder if the average person is just as likely to blow income tax refunds as they are lottery and inheritance windfalls.


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## purple.platypus (Dec 10, 2012)

Robillard said:


> I wonder if the average person is just as likely to blow income tax refunds as they are lottery and inheritance windfalls.


I "blew" mine on debt repayment and savings. I imagine I would do much the same with a modest lottery win.


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