Problems That Lottery Winners Have Faced
Everyone dreams of being blessed with riches. However, actual blessings of such riches have prompted many lottery winners to curse under their breath. Few lottery winners are endowed with the ability to manage vast sums of money with ease. Most encounter problems and some winners have even wished that they could turn back time and forget their fortunes altogether.
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Unscrupulous Associates
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Long-lost relatives and casual friends begin crawling out of the woodwork whenever someone they know wins a lottery. Family members have turned against each other under the influence of greed. In 2008, 81-year-old Gerald Moore alleged that his wife and daughter stole his winning lottery ticket and tried to cash it in Big winnings can inspire lottery winners to make big misjudgments of character. Showered with attention, lottery winners may share their winnings with miscreants and opportunists.
Legal Woes
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Benjamin Franklin once said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Some lottery winners fail to anticipate the diminishing effect that taxes exert on their winnings. Grandiose lottery winnings catapult winners into high tax brackets, reducing their impressive winnings into less impressive dollar amounts. After winning $17 million in the Florida lottery, Alex Toth tried to claim an income of just over $1 million on his 2000 tax return, asking for more than $100,000 in refunds. This misstatement made him the subject of a federal grand jury indictment.
Spiraling Debt
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According to Chelmsford wealth counselor Szifra Birke, nearly one third of lottery winners encounter financial trouble or bankruptcy within five years of winning. Lottery winners may receive large sums of money annually as a result of winning, but they may not possess a sufficient level of business savvy to manage these funds wisely. As a result, they may make unwise investments that will cause them to lose more money than they may have even won.
Emotional Well Being
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Winning money does not buy happiness, according to psychologists Shane Frederick and George Loewenstein. Winning a lottery provides an initial sense of exhilaration, but this is soon replaced with the person's prior disposition toward happiness or unhappiness. If a lottery winner was happy before being winning a lottery, he is likely to also be happy afterward. However, if she was chronically depressed prior to winning, chances are that she will remain so regardless of whether her winnings are large or small.
Uncontrollable Addictions
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Based on data gathered from by the British Household Panel Survey, which interviewed almost 8,000 people who won a lottery between 1994 and 2005, researchers from the Paris School of Economics determined that the overall health of lottery winners did not improve once they won. In fact, in certain cases, lottery winners experienced worse health after being granted financial comfort. People who nurse gambling, chemical or sexual addictions before winning are sure to nurse these same addictions after winning. Endowed with money, these winners may encounter difficulties when their addictions are given free reign to cripple their personal growth.
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- Photo Credit "Tragic Death of Elderly Lottery Winner," by Mykl Roventine
