As Lottery Fever Sweeps America, Former Powerball Winner Warns People to Take the Right Steps
The best advice anyone could ever give regarding the hidden tax that the government likes to call Powerball is simple: Don’t play it.
You have a much better chance of being struck by lightning — literally, according to the CDC — than you do of hitting the 1-in-292.2 million long shot that CNN said it takes to get all six numbers right.
That said, tonight’s Powerball jackpot is estimated to be about $1.9 billion (with a b), and for some reason, Americans — and I cannot claim to be unaffected by this particular species of illogic — prefer to throw our money away for a barely extant chance to win billions of dollars over throwing our money away for a barely extant chance to win mere millions.
And somebody has to win the thing eventually, right? Why not you — or me?
If we do, Timothy Schultz, who won $28 million in the Iowa Powerball in 1999, has some advice for us.
“The first thing they should do is try and keep calm and put the ticket somewhere secure, such as a safety deposit box,” Schultz told Fox News. (That sounds like two things to me, but OK.)
“Come up with a financial plan,” he added, and “get your ducks in a row prior to redeeming the prize” by getting help from credentialed financial advisers, estate attorneys and so forth.
That tracks. “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed,” Proverbs tells us.
Schultz hosts a podcast in which he interviews other lottery winners, and Fox summed up his three main pieces of advice: “Seek qualified, experienced financial advisers and estate attorneys right away … determine any gifts you intend to give to others early on. Be clear about that in the beginning, in order to help avoid people constantly asking for money in the future … [and] Stay grounded and true to yourself. Pursue what makes you happy.”
That all seems eminently reasonable to me (full disclosure: my wife is a financial adviser), but I still don’t like lotteries. They tax people, generally people who can least afford it. Sure, it’s voluntary, but asking people to succumb to their baser instincts is only ever going to end one way.
It’s also based on a lie, like so much of modern American culture is — the lie that money fixes things, that it makes life better, that you can trust it.
You can’t. That’s one reason why, if you ever receive a significant financial windfall, whatever its source, you need to surround yourself with wise counsel, as Schultz suggested.
Paul wrote some of that wise counsel to Timothy nearly 2,000 years ago: “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”
Riches are uncertain, even when you have them, Paul said. He didn’t say you can’t trust that money will come; he said you can’t trust the money you already possess, even if you’re rich. Especially if you’re rich.
Which, I suppose, means that if you have the money to blow, and you find such things entertaining, there are worse things you can do than drop a few bucks on a Powerball ticket or two — as long as you realize that that’s what you’re doing, dropping money.
As in, on the ground.
As in, losing it forever.
If you’re OK with that, who am I to argue? It’s your money.
And if you don’t have the money to blow and you’re tempted to buy a ticket anyway — or if you already have — you’re certainly not alone. (You might want to consider contacting the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700 if you think you could have a more serious gambling problem.)
A jackpot of close to $2 billion means that something like 2 billion tickets have been sold (at $2 each, with roughly half going into government coffers and administrative costs and the rest being paid out). Somebody has to win the thing, eventually.
Most of us, however, are going to be holding $2 bookmarks in our hands tomorrow morning.
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