Money Matters
I recently read about a Missouri lottery player who won $800,000 by playing the Powerball game and spent an extra $1 to activate the Power Play option. This was a good move, because the Power Play number came up in addition to her other numbers, so her $200,000 was multiplied four times. But what she said after the win stunned me.
“I’ll probably live like I do right now,” she said. “There is nothing I really want – just my family to be happy.”
Last year I read about another Powerball winner who scooped $29.1 million. He took the cash option and walked away with $9.3 million after taxes. When asked what he would do with his money, he responded: “Just keep on keepin' on, I guess.”
Just in case you think that I’m picking on Powerball players, I’m not. There are jackpot winners of the Lotto, MegaMillions and EuroMillions games (to name just a few) that have expressed similar sentiments. What I am picking on are people who play a lottery game, win a shed-load of cash, and then maintain that they will continue living as if the win had never happened in the first place.
Of course, I understand that a big win takes time to sink in, but downplaying a jackpot to the point where one comes across as having “I really don’t care about the money” attitude is either dishonest or insulting to the vast majority of lottery players who do care.
I say dishonest because, if the person who won really doesn’t care about the money, then why did they enter in the first place? Were they duped into thinking they’d win a toaster rather than a few hundred thousand or a few million?
And what about those that really don’t care about the money? In this case participating in a lottery, winning, and then saying that you’ll do absolutely nothing with the cash is insulting to the rest of us who have plenty of plans about how to make the most of a financial fortune.
Maybe people think that saying they “don’t care about the money” makes them seem more endearing or less materialistic. But from my perspective it just makes them annoying. So, for those people out there who really don’t care, I would politely request that you don’t play, because there are plenty of us who do care who will be able to put any jackpots we win to a lot better use.
Article Last Updated: 29/05/2008 11:38:48
