Topic: "Most lottery winners go broke after few years" - page 7. (Read 1665 times)

Degree and knowledge are nothing when you dont know where to use that and dont practice it. I have both examples in my life, when my classmates and university friends, who have bad grades during study, barely got a diploma, and now 1) work on a shitty low payment work 2) work on a well paid job. Both were getting same knowledge from same teachers. Some are even lazy to self educate, but were on the right spot at right time, and got a well paid job. But, we were never in lottery winners skin. We dont know how we would behave. We can claim that we will spend smart, invest, keep having regular life. But when a person sees 7-10 digit number in his bank account, he forget everything what he has said and promised. And whenever person starts to spend a lot and pay no attention to price tags, its hard to get rid from such habit.

Self education plus having that dedication and seriousness on trying out to achieve something despite on having that lack of education. It all matters on hard work and dedication because success isnt something that you will really be able to attain or hit up when you arent doing something to achieve it. You've seen that other people who do have degree but ending up on unsuccessful due to some decisions that they had made into their lives. Somehow, getting a degree will really be having that advantage in considering about the knowledge you will really be able to obtain but just like on what
everyone is saying on here that degree isnt everything, it do also need up that hard work and wise decisions need to be made on.

Explanation to whole situation is simple, you know what is money management, but they (those who got broke after winning a lot) dont. I would not be 100% sure that you, me or anyone else would  invest or spend money wise. Because I think that we have never been really rich by winning a lottery. And state of mind of those who worked hard or smart, and got rich, is different who was granted a present from destiny in a form of a lottery win. But, I think those who got rich and easy main problem was that they dont follow their expenses and monitor bank account regularly.

Do you know why people without a standard education or without it at all become financially successful? It's quite simple. They are engaged in self-education. I can say for sure that today you can't do without it. If you want to become rich, then you need to do this first. In my country, there are few people who do not work in their specialty. This is because education is outdated and there is nowhere to apply this knowledge after graduating from an educational institution. I know several small entrepreneurs who only have 9 years of school education, but this does not prevent them from successfully doing their business.

This is simply an ingrained opinion based on what people have heard somewhere but have not had the opportunity to see with their own eyes whether it is really so.

Perhaps this is jealousy, but I am not sure about it, why be jealous of other people's successes, it makes no sense, it is better to try to achieve success on your own, and let the example of other people become a good example for those who also want to achieve something.

This opinion is still taken as faith, because people believe that those who win a lot of money do not know how to handle money and will immediately start spending it, but I think that this is not true, you can skillfully handle money even when you earn little, and then just do the same with a lot of money.

I also like to think the same about myself but sometimes I hesitate if the amount is huge. There are EuroMillions jackpots approaching 200 million euros (about 210 million dollars). If you win that, I'm not so sure because it would be such a radical change that it scares me a bit. I wouldn't change 1 or 2 million euros, but I don't know about that amount.

Although I'm glad to see that according to what the OP brings most of the time she doesn't go crazy and uses the money responsibly.

Of course, people are very envious, jealous of other players' big wins, and there is nothing surprising about that, really. Also, many players have often heard in the news how an ordinary worker from a small town became a millionaire because of a jackpot that fell on him, and after a couple of years there was nothing left. Many remember these headlines and read them with a grin. But no one writes much about those who actually invest this money and their life becomes much better, because they will not have the same views and interest from readers.

It's back to our characters.

I've been working for many years and have never spend money for unnecessary thing, but I use the money to invest in Bitcoin. I honestly can buy a house, a car and increase my lifestyle with the amount I've invested, but nope, I still live the same way I live like when I'm broke.

What if I won a lottery? I will just invest it to Bitcoin, like nothing happened, then back to my daily routine.

You will remain who you used to be before you make life changing money, those who believe that money change people are blind, they don't have eye to see through others, people don't change after they make money, whatever they turned out to be was already a part of them before they get rich.

It is very easy to believe that giving out money to friends and family will make them love you even more, that's a big lie, they will still do whatever they like on your case because this is who they really are.

Don't use money to buy people, if they are not there when you are nothing they won't be there after buying them with money, all they will offer you is fake love. There are many stories about lottery winners already, I expect new lottery winners to learn from those people.

People do really love to degrade people who didnt been able to finish up college or able to get some degree on which they do really thought that they wont be able to succeed in life which is really that very wrong.
We've seen that those who finish up their studies not all had become successful but rather ending up on being jobless or able to get some job on which it is really that too far on their course.This is why
its not really that good on making up some conclusions basing up into the things that pertains or define success. It will really be better that you should really be that minding on your own business and let others do their stuff and so as you. As for lottery winners who do end up on becoming broke after winning up a huge amount then it is really that truly talks about mismanagement.

There were several horror stories about lottery winners going broke. Most people remember those stories rather than trying to remember a story of a lottery winner, who had a happy and meaningful life. The mainstream media knows that "bad news sells the newspaper" and "drama sells", so that's why the news about lottery winners going broke receive way more attention from the journalists and are shared way more often.
Most lottery winners, that are living a good life usually want to keep their privacy, rather than sharing stories about their fortune left and right.

In general, I agree with these two theses in the starting post. Indeed, out of a sense of jealousy or envy, people can calm themselves by coming up with such false patterns. And of course, the second thesis is simply unconditional. It is typical for a person to exaggerate his merits, whereas he was just lucky. In the starting post, this is called "correct circumstances" - a very appropriate definition. By the way, there is a good book by Nassim Taleb "Fooled by Randomness" about all this.

it's because people are of the opinion that the easier you get your money the easier you spends it and from evidence and past record, most lottery winners have been known for their reckless spending that sees them becoming broke few years after winning the lottery. this concept is just an assumption that is framed from few persons but when you look at it, its never true for a larger sample even though for some lottery players, they are used to misusing there money at clubs for the wrong reason.

if you are someone that has good financial management skill and is ready to plan out what the money you got from lottery will be going into, there is no where is is out rightly defined that regardless of your good policies you have implemented that it will end in disaster. its somehow related to a myth that some people holds most especially the religious ones that assume that the proceeds of gambling is a cursed money that cant stand the test of time. i don't believe that it is true because you didn't steal the money but got lucky is your gamble. like, you lost at several instances and now you have managed to win, should be now tagged as a cursed money when it was never stolen or gotten in a wrong manner? if you win a $20K worth of lottery and invest it in an asset or a business that has the tendency of yielding good returns in some years time, i doubt that just because the capital you used in making such investment is from lottery that you will unavoidably encounter a loss.

Every time there is bad news about gambling including people who have won the lottery but their lives have become chaotic then it is considered as a whole, the same as when someone is addicted they tend to think it is because of gambling when in fact it could be because of something else.
I read some news about people who won the lottery with fantastic amounts and their lives became poor again because they could not manage their finances and there were also those whose lives became dangerous because their closest people were after their money to control, but of course the news is only a little compared to those who managed to get better unfortunately good news does not attract more readers or attention than bad news, so people believe that winning the lottery will make life miserable.

Aren't that kind of articles meant to create the sensation that, if you get rich, you necessarily need the advice of banks, financial advisors, etc. because otherwise you'll lose it all and become miserable?

I'm sure that in many cases this is true: people get mad and start spending like there was no tomorrow without any planning and zero control over impulses. But I don't think this is the rule: most people will buy properties and rent them, or live a dear life themselves and the next generation with the money earned without wasting it.

Instead of "no" financial literacy, I guess it should be "lacking" financial literacy; either way, it's almost the same for those people who are in this state. Many lottery winners in this state are not used to managing large sums of money. Without a solid understanding of saving, budgeting, and investing, money is often spent carelessly. This post is not intended to mock them because my family came from this state and yet we managed to lift up and go out from that. I don't need actual proof; with all the news of lottery winners, especially in my region, it's actually common here, well not at all, just like I said most of them came from lower middle class or even lower.

Here are some articles in my area related to this, some are not documented.

A construction worker - https://filipinotimes.net/news/2017/10/17/filipino-lottery-winner-went-broke
A utility worker - https://filipinotimes.net/feature/2018/03/26/pinoy-lotto-winners-end-losing-winnings/


Here's some stories from Reddit in my local language too, most winners who are professional have positive outcome on their winnings while those who are not becomes more unfortunate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/14k3b3a/do_you_know_anyone_who_won_the_lottery_in_the/

Your observations are correct. Education is not a guarantee that you will maximize opportunities. There are many uneducated people in my area who are successful businessmen. Financial education is beyond schooling because it requires some habits that schools might not teach. There is a tribe in my country that are very successful in business but most of them are not literates. They acquire basic financial education through apprenticeship. But my point is that if someone combines education with some basic financial traits, he might become more successful. Education has the ability of opening the minds of an individual to explore more opportunities.

Also I have seen someone that went to school, become rich and later become poor. Also I have seen some that his parent died young, did not go to school but made it and become rich in life. Education is beyond schooling. There are some people that might not go to school but are so much financial literate without the help of anyone.

Sudden wealth syndrome is a psychological condition that has made many jackpot winners misuse their money. Since they are not prepared to handle such big amount they end up squandering it. However, there are people from poor backgrounds that have maximized their wins. They achieved it by getting sound investment and financial advice and refusing to live extravagantly.


Going to school could be an advantage to people who want to be financially prudent. They can easily gather information about investment since they have been exposed to it in school. But there is no guarantee that going to school will make one a financial literate. People who didn't attend conventional schools can seek advice from business consultants, learn business and make good financial decisions.

Interesting article linked by the OP, above from Forbes, which is a reliable source in this regard, although this does not guarantee that what the article says is right, although it does have research behind it. I liked how he questioned the statistics, and nowadays statistics are the most used tool to lie. In any case, without going into whether the position of the article is right or wrong, it is good to know this opposing opinion that I was unaware of.

Personally I believe that there will be some people who will end up being ruined by the lottery in a few years, as there have been well-known cases, but from there to the 70% that is usually quoted there is a long way to go.