10 Truly Shocking Facts You Didn’t Know
About The Lottery
A shark bite, a
lightning strike and a lottery win: a sane person assumes none of these will
happen to them. But of course chance is never so black and white. You might say
that chances are, chances aren’t. Feeling special? Play those numbers, sail in
that lightning storm, slap that Great White in the face. As the adage goes,
you’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
North Americans spent
$58 billion on lotteries in 2010. Yet the odds of winning a jackpot are
somewhere around 1 in 200 million. To put that in useful terms, if a Galapagos
tortoise bought a ticket every day of its life and lived to 255 (the record age
for a Galapagos tortoise), it has about a 1 in 2,151 chance of winning. The tortoise
will more than likely die sad and $100,000 in the hole. But what new
possibilities lie beyond these insurmountable odds?
Thanks to a study by UK
National Play
online lottery conductors Camelot
Group last year, you no longer need to fantasize about what your life looks
like when your balance grows by a factor of several million overnight. We
collated these little-known stats that capture the reality-TV side of hitting
the jackpot, including its effects on relationships, consumption habits and the
pursuit of happiness itself.
Here are 10 things you
didn’t know about life after lottery.
10. 44% of winners lose it all
Call it the Mike Tyson
effect. Wealth is a lifestyle, and acquiring should come about through lifelong
hard work, self-restraint and similarly boring virtues. Being wealthy, you
might say, is a state of mind not conducive to flaunting every penny saved and
earned.
Since earning isn’t
exactly a variable in the jackpot, you’d think winners would take extra care of
their finite fortune. But oh the human condition; to some, well-to-do simply
has to mean castles made of Jell-O and private laser tag arenas.
44% of national lottery
winners deplete their entire winnings within 5 years. For any jackpot over a
few million dollars, you have to admit that is a stunning feat. Let’s hope they
kept their day job.
9. 48% of winners keep their day job
They say lotteries
target poor people, and in most peoples’ minds “poor” means being trapped in
dreadful slave-like employment. But about half of these overnight millionaires
either remain satisfied enough with their job to keep it, or are smartly
anticipating some version of the Mike Tyson effect. Either way, good for them.
The survey finds that
15% start a new job (we like to think most of them made a pretty heroic exit)
and 45% start their own business. As for the remainder—assuming they rake in
anywhere from a few hundred thousand to the world record $365 million win in
2006—they no doubt cash out for an early retirement. Let’s just hope they don’t
cash back in after 5 years.
8. Your chances of being happier are only around 50%
It’s one of the biggest
clichés ever spouted for a reason. Millions of dollars aren’t particularly
better than most things at bringing you happiness. According to the study by
Camelot Group, 55% of national lottery winners claim to be happier after winning.
65% of these credit lack of financial stress, and 23% their ability to buy
whatever they wanted.
But 43%, on the other
hand, claimed no effect on their happiness. For a tiny 2% of the sample,
winning the Play
lottery online actually made
them less happy. Was Biggie right? Does mo’ money bring mo’
problems? 45% of jackpot winners are either shameful liars, or 300 mil really
does have about the same promise of happiness as a new job, a new exercise
routine, or heck, even a new sweater.
7. 83% of winners give money to family
See the thing is dad has
always wanted a fishing boat, and if he didn’t spend so much of his time, money
and happiness raising you, he’d probably have one by now. Remember that when
you get to have $50 million dollars just because.
The Camelot study found
17% of $100,000 to $500,000 lottery winners get asked by their family for
money. For wins over $4 million, 29% of winners get asked. That’s literally
asking, never mind the passive remarks about never having been to Europe.
Obviously the higher the
jackpot, the more family will be inclined to remind you they’re family. But do
they really need to? Around three quarters of winners give money to their
family: 66% to siblings, 57% to children and 51% to parents.
6. 90% of winners lose friends
You’ve just hit the
jackpot: Congratulations, everybody hates you.
Why? Because it takes a
shockingly big-headed person to think they deserve to win the
lottery jackpot, and until you show some generosity, winning it automatically
qualifies you as such a person. Jealousy is just that petty.
Though jealousy has a
point. When Lady Luck could have just as easily given you lemons like everyone
else, what better way to show humility than to spread some of that fortune
around? According to the study, men give money to three friends and women to
one on average. Naturally, the study also determined 90% of lottery winners
have a best friend who remains their best friend.
5. Just 1% of winners get plastic surgery
Of course, nothing says
humility like a brand new face. People tend to think wealth and superficiality
go hand-in-hand, and they’re totally right, but the misanthrope in us expected
this rate to be higher. Faith in humanity slightly restored.
But sometimes it takes
financial security to expose someone’s insecurities. 1% of jackpot winners opt
for a new look under the knife.
After winning £1.9
million at the age of 16, Callie Rogers, the UK’s youngest-ever lottery winner,
spent £550,000 on four properties, £250,000 on parties and hard drugs, £85,000
on cars and £11,500 on two boob jobs. Her fortune ran out by the age of 26. She
maintains she is far happier today without it, and with her new boobs.
4. Most winners travel
Got a bucket list? Start
crossing: Handstand on the Great Wall of China, a butt slide down the Andes.
Money means time to feed whatever freaky wanderlust you might have. It turns
out many jackpot winners have never been outside their home country — 19% of
them take their first foreign voyage after winning. 7% of winners purchase an
RV to help with that.
Others make bigger
moves. The study found 38% of lottery winners relocate, 75% of these from an
apartment to a single family home, and 24% of winners buy property in a foreign
country.
Then there’s the boring
12% who have never left their country and continue to never leave. But to their
credit, have you been on Google Earth lately?
3. 3% move their kids from public to private schools
Money doesn’t buy
smarts, but it does buy more money. When they say it’s who, not what you know
gets you ahead, “getting ahead” means making more money. Think of private
education as a way of insuring your children’s lottery fortune, at the
potential expense of their emotional development.
Transitioning from public
to private schools is sort of like joining a yacht club. Everyone will
not-so-secretly want to know who the new guy’s daddy is and what he does. It
might be a little awkward for little James to explain how his just drew $200
million from a hat, but all the same he is taking a courageous step into the
world of the well-to-do.
Good to know only 3% of
winners’ kids have to take that step.
2. 32% of winners gain weight
Money can be a powerful
stimulant or a powerful sedative. As for its effect on your being fat,
comfortable and lazy, it’s generally a sedative.
32% of national lottery
winners gain weight. If they don’t walk or take the bus anymore, that’s
probably a factor. If they quit their job and spend all their time “managing
their investments” that’s also a factor. If they stocked their newly furbished
freezer room with a year’s supply of cookie dough ice cream, of course that
too.
Amusingly enough, 12% of
winners decide to join a gym. It’s safe to assume gaining weight is the biggest
reason people join gyms, and that most of that 12% are hoping their cash will
solve the very problem it seems to have created. But we all know how those gym
memberships tend to work out.
Some people say it’s a
tax on the poor; some say it’s a tax on the stupid; some say it’s a tax on the
bad-at-math. Maybe the lottery is just a tax on optimism.
The fact that over two
thirds of jackpot winners keep playing proves the payout doesn’t really matter:
The lottery is a gamble, and win or lose gambling tends to fulfill its own purpose.
Whether you call that purpose harmless fun or a rapturous thrill with addiction
potential is up to you.
But really, would
you want to be that guy who won the lottery twice?
