The Powerball lottery is up to $1 billion tonight. If you won it, what would you do?
Keep it a secret.
Exactly. Do as little as required by the laws of where you live and immediately get the fuck away from wherever you are and start the process to emigrate to a different country. Christmas and Thanksgiving will now be done over video chat.
My wife and I were thinking about this last week. We were wondering about personal security. At least where we live, they like to make a spectacle of the big winner with photo op, publish name and how town, etc. We wondered if that would invite trouble for the winner. For instance, would people try to break in expecting you to have valuables? Would you be a target for kidnapping and ransom? What about your family or close friends, would someone kidnap them to get you to pay ransom on? Even if you immediately spent it all, would people still try, not knowing it’s all gone? I’m with you, I’d keep it as secret as I could.
The guy who won “over a billion” (that’s not what he got to keep) has headlines with his full name, what real estate he’s bought, lawsuits brought against him and he’s had to get body guards.
Because california forces a person to claim it and anonymity isn’t allowed.
Like a lot of trouble, the worst doesn’t come from strangers, it comes from people you know. By all accounts, what happens is that anyone who knows you comes out of the woodwork and suddenly wants a favor, or a small loan, or an investment in their brilliant business idea, and of course you’re the asshole if you deny any of them. If you can’t keep it a secret entirely, it’s best to at least lock up the money somewhere so that you can blame the big mean lawyer who is “making” you be responsible and not blow it all on your second cousin’s crypto app.
Not possible in some states, unfortunately :/
Yeah, in my state when you win they have a picture of you holding a check that airs on rotation on every lottery machine for months.
My wife’s best friend won $1M and everyone recognize her at all the bars because of it. She got the last laugh because she blew all that money and now nobody can get any of it out of her.
Keep playing to get more rich.
Most professional gamblers quit just before a big victory. I won’t make that mistake.
THIS is the right answer. So many idiots in this thread.
Not tell anyone and just quietly retire. Spend as much time as possible with my kids as they grow.
Talk to a major law firm about accepting the prize as anonymously as possible. Take the lump sum -payment to the lawyer team and divide it into thirds. One third goes into a trust that I can direct friends and family to with instructions to offer assistance for major life events, weddings, funerals, education and the like. That way I never have to be the bad guy who says yeah, no.
The second third will get invested into low risk bonds so I have a stable income forever
The final third will become what people normally do with lottery winnings, new home, that kind of stuff
Among other things, I’d keep going to work. I enjoy my job. What I’ll really enjoy is every time someone tries to pawn off something on me that’s not actually my job I’ll tell them, “not my job”
Being able to go in to work without the same fears that usually accompany those living paycheck to paycheck even if they enjoy the work must be the most freeing thing ever. Knowing you are now untouchable financially so can take a stand if something annoys you enough.
I paid off all of my debts and have a few months saved up. Same feeling I think. It is the most freeing feeling I’ve ever felt. Like a mini retirement.
Yeah I’m freelance and really love my work. It’s rewarding and impactful. Without any doubt these things are true. I’d probably cut back my hours a bit. But I’d just tell my clients that my services are now free.
I would buy Reddit and convert it into a Lemmy instance.
You know everyone would be screaming about preemptively defederating, right?
Cut my hours back at work, maybe take a sabbatical spend much more time with my kids, and go to art school. I’m pretty good at it, but it wasn’t in the trailer park cards.
I’d keep it a secret except from the closest people to me. I’d be incredibly boring about what I’d do with it.
First I would pay off my mortgage and invest a chunk in “safe” investments - so shares in utility companies, funeral business - boring reliable investments - and property and land, across borders. All to try and guarentee I would stay financially secure long term for the rest of my life, and weather financial storms.
I’d help my immediate family financially (siblings and parents, and closest friends) but would not go over board - I’d make their lives better but not ruin them, and would aim to keep most of the money ready to keep helping for years to come rather than splurge out. And I wouldn’t tell them how much I had so as not to ruin relationships.
For what I do for me I would think very hard. I’d probably not quit work immediately and I’d try not to ruin my life.
I’d probably look to travel but in bursts - either nice holidays and keep working (I like my job) or quit work and live 3 months at a time in places I’ve always wanted to be for a bit before settling down again.
Anything I do or buy I would do as someone “middle class”. So I’d travel economy plus, I’d stay in decent hotal but not the most flashy, I’d buy a decent home but not a mansion (I don’t need a 10 bed home, I’d just get a nicer version of what I have now - 3 beds but maybe detached and in a nicer area).
Basically I’d upgrade my life a little but I wouldn’t go wild. I don’t see the value in the conspicuously wealthy lifestyle - I’d see money as buying freedom but I wouldn’t want to be wasteful, and I wouldn’t want to be a target for criminals or leeches.
And the rest i’d start puting to good causes. That would probably be conservation charities, green charities, social projects I believe in. Id want to use it to create some kind of legacy even if anonymous - for me that would be something that meaningfully improved the world in some small but realistic way.
Basically I’d be very boring, stay anonymous and try and make relatively small but meaningful changes to my life and those I love.
You think you would get to live in the same place with no one knowing you won the $1B lottery? Interesting.
Me, I would go to a top law firm and see a senior partner about getting out of being publicized. Have them set up sale of property and disconnect my phone lines and internet accounts after creating new unknown ones. I would have the lawyers present the ticket for me through various layers of holding companies and trusts, but I would be a ghost for awhile. The legal team would make sure all family members got some money with a nice non disclosure agreement. Immediate family would have my contact information with a request to never disclose. All money Would be dispersed between several low fee brokerages where I would invest in a combination of treasury backed securities, short term CDs, total stock market ETFs, and cash would be dispersed between several high interest savings accounts. I would be unreachable for 6 months while News died down.
If I won the lottery, I would start by ending the homeless problem in my state. All it would take would be one stroke of the pen and many people’s lives would be improved.
and then you start getting sued cause someone hurt themselves in one of the homes you put them in, or it burned down, or any of a thousand other reasons, because greedy shitheads exist and are plentiful and will gladly turn your sweet treat into acid in your mouth in a heart beat if they think they can squeeze more blood out of you.
I would definitely have to lawyer up and get as much of my ass covered as possible. Huzzah!
- downpunxx ( @downpunxx@kbin.social ) 2•1 year ago
Noble, but I’ve got some very bad news about how much it would take to end homelessness in even the smallest state in the country, as even if the 500 mil you’d be left with after taxes could do it, which it couldn’t, more homeless people would move to that state immediately
Utah managed to do it and they’re doing just fine.
- downpunxx ( @downpunxx@kbin.social ) 3•1 year ago
ok. you can afford to fund Utah’s homeless problem for 1.5 years, with 500 million, which is what you’d be left with after winning the 1 Billion dollar lottery
You can always start a foundation to keep the money flowing in. People would donate
Foundations do not exist to solve problems. They exist so their founders can profit either socially and financially off of them.
I’d ditch it for a million dollars
But really, that’d easily put me in the top 0.1% of my country. I’d probably never manage to spend it all. I’d definitely set aside some millions for ReactOS and other open source projects that I like.
First start the process of getting a new wheelchair, my current one is 13 years old and leaves a trail of nuts and bolts.
That’s just its way of helping you find your way home.
Disappear and never be heard from again.
Let’s be a bit more realistic, I won 1 000 000 €. I would donate most of the stuff:
- Transfer 500k € to the National Bank of Ukraine;
- Transfer 70k € to nonprofits in my city;
- 30k € goes to spread the message of FOSS and Linux to Lithuania. That includes:
- Establishing and maintaining a nation-wide open-source social network, primarily targeted for IT
- Funding to FOSS projects in Lithuania (I don’t know any ATM, though)
- 100k € goes to global IT non-profits, such as:
- Wikipedia;
- Lemmy and the Fediverse;
- The Linux Foundation;
- et cetera.
I am left with around 300k € that I’d use for myself.
Non-capital (leisure and hobby) (40k €):
- I’d like to have some free time/make my close friends happy, so ~10k € for that.
- Also, I’d like to travel to Japan, meet ZUN, have some alcohol-free beer with him. 10k € for that.
- 10k € for travelling (leisure) across Europe (incl. attending FOSDEM).
- Knowing myself, I’d really have some mad and stupid ideas appearing in my head, 10k € for that.
Capital/investing (260k €):
- I’d definitely have to buy an accomodation in Kaunas or Vilnius (I hope it’s not Vilnius) if I’d like to continue my career in IT, so 100k € for that.
- Education (in a period of 3 years) (10k €):
- LFCS/LFCE courses
- Advanced mathematics and algorithms courses
- Professional soft skills training
- 10k € is reserved for a black day, unused.
- 15k € of non-profit network infrastructure (hosting FOSS projects) (incl. maintenance for 4 years)
- 15k to have an individual for-profit business.
- Distributed investing (90k €, incl. investor costs)
- 20k is another buffer money for household expenses.
Kaunas or Vilnius (I hope it’s not Vilnius) if I’d like to continue my career in IT, so 100k € for that.
That’s cheap as fuck. Is it even realistic, and then you’re going to go back to work?
I’d really have some mad and stupid ideas appearing in my head, 10k € for that
How are you going to implement any mad ideas when you essentially have to return to your full time job to survive, once giving 5+ years of salary to Ukraine? Absolutely terrible plan here.
A better plan (in my opinon only) would be to buy the properlty you want, or put the whole 1m in a pension index fund, then immediately retire, taking a 50k per year salary for life (well based on historical average stock market return). Then living in people’s air bnb’s across Europe and Japan contributing to FOSS projects. 50k per year will pay for education, allow you to pay into charities and make FOSS donations depending on how you live.
once giving 5+ years of salary to Ukraine?
We have much smaller purchasing power here. Programmers’ salaries for Junior Developer are at around 20k to 30k a year in Lithuania and up to 50k a year for Senior developers, and this is only if you are really lucky.
Pay off my mortgage, invest it and live off the interest, and spend the rest of my life traveling with my wife
I would be incredibly surprised, as I do not play the lottery. I’d probably start by getting a lawyer to handle it.
Your odds of finding the winning ticket on the sidewalk about about the same as if you bought a ticket. I’m not sure if that changes the surprise level.
I guess you’re kind of right, in that they’re both essentially 0. But the odds of winning the lottery are still …millions? of times higher to win by buying one than finding a winning ticket on the street.
/pedantry