Winning Big, Losing Bigger

Today’s Bloganuary prompt: “What would you do if you won the lottery?”

Well, I’ve written about this before in two previous posts, so excuse me if I’m repeating myself. The simple fact of the matter is, I don’t want to win the lottery. Maybe a million dollars. That would be about what my financial experience could handle.

I have a co-worker who dreams of winning big–like the two billion dollar winnings. “Oh,” she says, “I’d spend it on homeless animals, and my daughter wouldn’t have to work.” What she doesn’t realize is how difficult it is to manage large amounts of money. I tried telling her, and her response was, “I’ve got a good accountant. She does my taxes every year.”

The sheer naivety of that statement tells me she’d be one of the 70 percent of lottery winners, including those who win tens of millions, who end up bankrupt within five years. Most winners aren’t good financial planners, and many see their winnings as endless. Fortune magazine described it as seeing those millions like Monopoly money.

I should add here that my co-worker is currently in bankruptcy and has a terrible history of money management. Winning big wouldn’t change that.

Friends and family members will sue for a portion of the winnings, and don’t think that a baseless lawsuit on their part means you’ll win. Scammers come out of the woodwork. Greed can become the law of the land. In short, winning the lottery creates more problems than it solves.

It makes you a target.

So what would I do if I won the lottery? I don’t play.

Image Credit: © Minerva Studio–stock.adobe.com