A lot of people have likely wondered what they would do with the money if they won the lottery. But arguably only a few considered sharing the winnings with their friends.
Winning the lottery can be a life-changing event
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When a friend won the lottery at a destination wedding, this redditor asked how much of the money the winner will give to the newlyweds
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The chances of winning the lottery are slim at best
The chances of winning a lottery are in no way favorable for the optimistic ticket holder; depending on certain factors, the odds can be as low as one in hundreds of millions.Investopedia suggestedthat the chances of winning the jackpot in a Powerball drawing, for instance, are 1 in 292.2 million, to be exact.
Investopedia also provided some numbers for comparison, pointing out that the chances of death or injury from lightning in a given year are 1 in 1,222,000, chances of dying from a hornet, wasp, or bee sting during your lifetime are 1 in 57,825, while dying in a cataclysmic storm—1 in 35,074; even an avid lottery player would presumably consider such events quite unlikely to happen (yet they might continue buying lottery tickets nevertheless).
Even such odds can’t deter certain people from trying their luck time and again. Every year, thousands of people in the US buy tickets in the hopes of changing their life overnight, which adds up to $370 per person annually spent on lottery tickets (based on 2021 data, Investopedia reports). Studies found that in Minnesota, for example, one-fifth of lottery players accounted for over 70% of lottery receipts, while in Pennsylvania, roughly 30% of players accounted for nearly 80% of the entire lottery revenue.
Even though there’s no certain path to winning the lottery, there are arguably ways to increase your chances; mathematicianSkip Garibaldidiscussed some of them with Wired, adding that some lotteries are easier to win than others. Garibaldi suggested that for games like Powerball, you’d like to be the only one who wins the jackpot so you don’t have to share it and in order to do that, you should pick unpopular numbers.
“Don’t pick dates, for example, because a lot of people gamble based on dates,” he said. “Other advice might be, if you look at the ticket where you pick your numbers, don’t just pick a column of numbers on that ticket, for example, because some people will do that.” Despite his own insight on how to increase one’s chances of winning, the mathematician concluded that, “It’s gambling; you might get lucky, but it’s really getting lucky”.
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Winning the lottery can turn a person’s life upside down; unfortunately, not always for the better
Be that as it may, winning mind-bogglingly large amounts of money doesn’t always change one’s life for the better.Business Insidercovered stories of lottery winners’ lives going south after obtaining the money, including the one of William “Bud” Post, who was $1 million dollars in debt within a year after winning $16.2 million in 1988. Among other unfortunate stories was also one about Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr—winner of a $315 million multistate Powerball draw in 2002—who lost his fortune just four years after, due to two robberies and a lawsuit.
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The online community considered the OP a jerk for her question
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