Winning the lottery: A dream come true or a nightmare in disguise?

6 January 2021

Winning the lottery: A dream come true or a nightmare in disguise?

To many, the idea of winning the lottery seems like a dream come true. Imagine having the money to live a life free of financial worry, being able to move into a very nice house, being able to support yourself while following your passion, or just being able to buy luxury items. However, it seems that this supposed blessing may be exactly the opposite. Why is that? While not improving or even worsening your mental health, going into an even worse financial situation, or even distancing you from those you care about, winning the lottery definitely isn’t all it’s hyped up to be. So let’s explore each of these reasons in a bit more detail.

First of all, winning the lottery will most likely not improve your overall happiness. If you were already happy and satisfied with your life before winning the lottery, then this new surplus of money will not improve your happiness. It has been shown that if you’re responsible with your money it could improve your overall life satisfaction, but not your day-to-day happiness and as shown in the next paragraph most people are not responsible with their money. Now if you were unhappy before winning the lottery then financial worries were likely not the only reason even if they were a contributing factor. Therefore it stands to reason that having that problem solved would not fix the other reasons contributing to your unhappiness. In fact, this newly acquired large amount of money could end up leaving you in a worse situation than before. It could distance you from friends and cause you to develop unhealthy and often expensive coping mechanisms. 

Secondly, if you win the lottery you could end up in an even worse situation financially than when you started. According to a large number of studies over 70% of lottery winners end up broke in less than 7 years. This number is not backed up by all studies however it is for the majority of them. Of course, this does not happen in all cases however 70% is a pretty large percentage. Backtracking to the last point, due to declining mental health lottery winners may develop bad coping habits and due to their new surplus of money, these habits may be expensive. Also, those with large amounts of money are more likely to spend it frivolously and although this may be fine for a time the spent money can add up. It also means if something were to happen to their money they likely wouldn’t have any backup savings.

Lastly winning the lottery could end up distancing you from those you actually care about and your interactions with people in general. Having such a large sum of money in your bank account is likely to end up distancing you from others. Now although some people may argue people like that are not worth having in your life(and I personally agree) it can still take a major toll on your mental health. In regards to addressing the amount of hostility it can cause others to build for you, there are a select amount of cases in which lottery winners or their families ended up brutally murdered. Now although this obviously does not happen in the majority of cases it certainly is a testament to how much hostility can be built up towards lottery winners even by those they don’t know. 

In conclusion, though winning the lottery may seem like an amazing gift it might in fact be the exact opposite. From hurting your overall happiness, worsening your monetary circumstance, to messing up your relationships with those around you it seems in many ways it could hurt more than help. 

Bibliography

Mejia, Zameena. “Winning the $1 billion Mega Millions jackpot won’t make you happier, but it will make you more satisfied, study finds.” CNBC, 19 October 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/winning-the-lottery-makes-you-more-satisfied-with-life-for-10-years.html#:~:text=A%20recent%20study%20finds%20that,might%20not%20dissipate%20over%20time. Accessed 6 January 2021.

Ramsey, Dave. “Are Your Odds of Winning the Lottery Good? Don’t Bet On It! 5 MINUTE READ.” Ramsey, 22 May 2019, https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-the-lottery-can-ruin-your-life#:~:text=Winning%20the%20lottery%20is%20probably,life%E2%80%94we're%20serious.&text=The%20truth%20is%2C%20even%20if,of%20problems%20to%20deal%20with. Accessed 6 January 2021.

Steele, Kari. “Curse of the lottery: Why winning the Mega Millions could kill you.” abc15, 22 October 2018, https://www.abc15.com/news/state/curse-of-the-lottery-why-winning-the-mega-millions-could-kill-you#:~:text=Stay%20with%20me%20here.,those%20close%20to%20them%20suffer. Accessed 6 January 2021.