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Of course, 149 million to 1 odds make winning for anyone pretty slim....about as likely as being stung to death while being struck by lightning while being eaten by a shark while driving in a rubber car in the desert! but still fun!
My brother is a stockbroker and he told me that something like 3 out of 5 big money lottery winners declare BANKRUPTCY within the 1st 5 years, for several reasons.
1) They get and take crappy financial advice or none at all. Get yourself a financial adviser and an Estate Planner that you trust, NOT your cousin Otis, unless Otis fits those categories, is a bona fide professional in the field and has a track record with others.
2) They take the payments. NEVER TAKE THE PAYMENTS! They buy something huge with the 1st check like a yacht or an expensive piece of property that has huge upkeep costs they didn't anticipate. Then they're forced to borrow on next years check, and so on. Every crooked Lawyer and Broker around will try and sell them something and the fees ad up. With the Annuity, you only get one check a year so you have to watch it.
3) They can't say NO! Every wanker that you ever knew and many more that you NEVER knew come out of the woodwork with their hand out.
4) Totally unprepared for the financial windfall. Most folks that have never had money to begin with don't realize how quick you can burn through a million and they just become foolish with it.
Regarding not taking the payments, most state lotteries as well as the Mega Millions and the Powerball multi-state lotteries don't actually have the 100 million (or whatever) to hand you. What they have is an annuity that amounts to just over 51% of the total. If you take the payments, the annuity is structured so that over the course of the (Usually)26 years it pays out the full 100 mill. If you take the cash up front, what you actually get is about 1/3rd of the original, or 33 mill for a 100 mill lottery. Thats the 51% annuity, minus roughly 40% of that straight off the top for the IRS. that leaves roughly 1/3rd the original.
Now....invested conservatively, large amounts of money will bring roughly 8% a year ($80,000 for every $1,000,000 invested)
If you took that 33 mill, and spent say..8 mill right off on yourself, and invest the remaining 25 mill, you would still be WAY ahead of the $100,000,000 over the course of 26 years.
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