How paranoid would you be if you won a huge lottery jackpot?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Obviously inspired by the half billion dollar Powerball jackpot.

We often ask ourselves what we’d do if we won. But that much money can make you a huge target, in many ways. So how paranoid would you be?

For example, the lottery people tell you to sign the ticket as soon as you get it. But you can’t remain anonymous if you do that (who WOULD sign it, then?). But then, would you be able to handle carrying around an unsigned half billion dollar ticket? How would you balance that versus the desire not to be the target of every leeching relative, friend, and scammer in the country?

And what would you DO with the ticket between the time you see that you won and the claim? How would you find someone who won’t rob you blind to represent you (in whatever way you care to think of the term “represent”)? Who would you tell, and how (even in terms of medium)?

Everyone knows how they’d spend the money… But I wonder if you think about how you’d GET it. :slight_smile:

2

Oh, I’d lie to family for a while. Yeah, they’d be getting substantial amounts of ‘anonymous’ money, but I can lie pretty well when I need to, and they’d never KNOW it was me. It doesn’t hurt that I haven’t lived near them for a while, hehe.

I’d sign the ticket, of course. I imagine it’d be a while before i could actually turn it in, since you can’t just saunter down to the 7-11 and ask them to redeem it. So my life until then wouldn’t change, except my googling habits re: “WHAT LAWYER DO I NEED FOR WINNING THE LOTTERY?!?!?!?!” would probably raise eyebrows.

3

I’d be a little bit paranoid. That much money is enough that stupid people would think you’d be a good target for robbery, or even kidnapping.

ETA: I wouldn’t go home after the announcement was made. I’d be in a hotel suite somewhere, meeting with accountants and lawyers. Then it’d be time to decide where to live, because with that kind of jackpot, the winner won’t be soon forgotten.

4

I still have some banking friends from back when I worked for a large bank specializing in trusts. My first step would be consulting with them and retaining an attorney they recommend. I would likely utilize a personal banking team from that bank and deposit my funds there, too.

5

I wouldn’t go quite as far as AuntiePam suggests, to hole up in a hotel for a while. But, yeah, I’d be a bit worried at first.

SeaDragonTattoo’s idea makes the most sense: hire professionals to help deal with things. Since I know I’ve got absolutely zero financial sense, I’d definitely hire a financial advisor. Maybe set up a trust to pay money to me in rationed increments, so I can’t (quite as easily) go and be stupid.

6

I’d be more worried about ongoing concerns. I have two children ripe for the kidnaping. I’d also have safety concerns whether I was living in town or out in the country. That’s the stuff that scares me.

I wouldn’t be worried about blowing it all. What I’d like to do might not top two million.

7

**How paranoid would you be if you won a huge lottery jackpot? **

No more than usual.

8

Hire a law firm to do the publicity and remain anonymous myself – like the person who won the megamillions about a year back. Even paying them 5% it would be worth it.

Before handing the ticket over, while researching to find the right law firm and the right finical advisor, I would have the ticket at home - in several sealed plastic lunch baggies which are frozen in chicken broth kept in the freezer. No one gets told about it until I have the law firm set up.

That is how I plan to handle the winning ticket which is now in my purse.

9

The rotten.com library had an interesting article about how to cash in a winning lottery ticket while preserving your anonymity in the process. Among other things, they suggested storing the ticket in a safe deposit box at a bank while you get your affairs in order and prepare to cash it in. A safe deposit box provides excellent protection against theft, but also against fire, flood, tornado, and freezer burn.

http://www.rotten.com/library/culture/lottery-winners/

I definitely would want to claim it anonymously. If my name somehow became publicly connected with my newfound wealth, I would feel compelled to move into a house with a very robust security system.

What to do afterwards? Yes, it would be hard to spend much of it without revealing that you actually have it. My family would be asking questions if I suddenly started driving around in a top-tier Cadillac and added several motorcycles to my stable. I suppose I’d have to tell immediate family (sibs + parents), but extended family don’t keep track of my lifestyle, so they wouldn’t have to know. My immediate family are well-behaved people and are not short of wealth, so they wouldn’t be begging for windfalls.

Where the hell would I put it all? $500M over 20 years equals $25M per year. After taxes, about $15M per year. I guess I’d be investing whatever I didn’t spend. All I can say about that is that Bernie Madoff reminds us of a valuable lesson: don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.

10

A long time ago in a high school social studies class we did a project. The 6/49 (Canadian National lottery) had reached an unprecedented at that time level of $17million dollars and so we had to decide how we would handle that money. The project wasn’t completely out of the blue, 5 years earlier a young man in my very small town had won $5million in the same lottery and was already broke, had lost his license and most of his friends and family hated him for “not giving them enough”. We were to take the lessons learned from his experience and find our own solution.

Trusts are not allowed to win Canadian lotteries, you must reveal your name and grant the Lottery Corporation the right to use the photo they take of you recieving the giant cheque in order to receive your prize so my solution was a group lottery agreement. I gather 20-30 friends and family, give them each 1% and sign myself up for the remaining 70-80%. Then a huge group of people claims the big cheque and we’ve got a little bit of cover. This was pre-your entire life is on the internet time so that seemed sufficient.

Today I would preceed that by hiring the already mentioned lawyer and financial advisor and follow it with a year or so of traveling around the world. It’s unlikely that a Canadian or US lottery win is huge news in Italy or England or Australia and I’d get to see some places I’ve always wanted to. When the time came to settle down I would imagine I would have 2 houses - one here in Toronto for the summers and one in Hawaii for winters.

11

In most US States, you can’t claim it anonymously either.

12

Not overly paranoid. ASAP, rent a safety deposit box. Take pictures of the front and back of the ticket, and leave the original in the safety deposit box. Tell my wife and nobody else. Consult lawyer. Other than for these tasks, I do not leave the house until the money is set up in accounts. Then, to spending.

13

Über-paranoid. We already live in a sketchy area, so I would sign the ticket, toss it into the safe deposit box and start hunting up the professionals. I’m quite sure that they could buy us a new house under a corporate name for us to disappear to before the announcement was made. California also requires that you claim the prize in person, so no hiding behind a trust. But they would get a brief public statement: “Bugger off, the lot of you! Nobody is getting any of this, so don’t ask.”

New city, new appearance, lay low for a few…easily do-able. The only targets for kidnappers would be me or the wife, and a good security firm and low profile would take care of that. Especially if you move to an area where multi-millionaires are a dime a dozen.

14

In my Powerball fantasies, I was thinking about something along these lines. I was imagining what sort of shit-storm I’d be inviting by, say, posting on Facebook that I was now a millionaire. Not only would I be a huge target from general scammers and low-lifes, but from my own relatives - some of which already fit those descriptions.

Secondly I was thinking … how the hell could I not brag about it on the Dope. But I’d guess a full 75% of the posters wouldn’t believe me in the first place.

I think my first move would be to sign the ticket, staple it to my scrotum or something, and go visit my parents and let them guard me for a little while as I decompressed before jumping into the fun world of how my lawyers am I going to need and who gets how much from me.

15

I propose that we all (non Americans included) post tomorrow that we have the winning ticket and then vote on whose post is most believable.

No bonus points for pictures (Hey I have no photoshop expertise and I’m slanting the rules in my favour)

16

I have a financial advisor and a lawyer I use sometimes. After signing the ticket because I do not care who knows after I cash it in, I see them both. I set up trusts for my kids, arrange gifts to those I want to have them.

Then, vacation time for the rest of my life in my huge new house on hundreds of acres built to my specs. Maybe hire someone to deal with all the begging.

17

I’d be pretty paranoid. My main concern would be to isolate myself from everyone as much as possible, which kind of sucks, since I’m already pretty introverted and not much for social activity. It’d also make dating afterward really awkward, as I’m not sure I could ever trust having anyone liking me again.

Safety deposit box for immediate storage of the ticket. Then, I’d contact financial advisors and lawyers recommended by my ex-fiancee’s family (a wealthy family, familiar with trust finds and such, and highly unlikely to try to scam any money from me), and resign my job. Weed out my Facebook friends and go private/unsearchable on it. Tell friends/family that are concerned by all of these actions that I had a windfall that was enabling all of this, and would discuss details with them when I felt comfortable doing so.

As of right now, I have a number of plausible reasons to do all of the above without raising much suspicion; my mom recently died, and it would be assumed that I received a decent insurance settlement. I did get one recent small settlement, and they know I’ve felt weird about receiving money for her death, so my reticence to discuss more money coming in would be expected. In addition, everyone knows that I’ve been wanting to quit work and go to grad school, so this would be the default assumption for everyone at work.

I’d be able to use my retirement funds and savings to move (and frankly wouldn’t need to keep many of my current things); pack up my collections and put them in storage, sell or give away my furniture, and then I’d go somewhere local but secure, a decent hotel or something. I currently live in a low-end apartment complex. I don’t have much family (and they’re all pretty trustworthy), and only a few friends whom I think are mostly trustworthy, but I wouldn’t be comfortable if neighbors found out I was going to have money, so it’d just be easiest to hit the reset button there. I’d also finally let my landline lapse (pretty inextricably linked to my real name by any sort of identity search at this point), and would probably change my cell phone number as a precaution.

At that point, I’d pull the trigger and claim the winnings. I’d be most suspicious of anyone from my past suddenly showing up (ex-wife, any of my ex-girlfriends, lapsed friends, distant family), and cat’s out of the bag everywhere else. Hopefully my isolation techniques above would keep things manageable. For very close friends, I’d probably see about setting up some sort of trust fund for them through my “handlers.” Then, I’d look at buying home(s) out of state/country – NYC, Toronto, etc. – where I’d feel comfortable having conspicuous wealth while remaining fairly anonymous, and then I’d move away from the current area permanently. There’s one old flame/current friend I’d love to sweep up with me, but would otherwise expect to go alone.

18

Well, I’d certainly be paranoid in the sense that I’d be wondering how the fuck the lottery ticket got in my wallet, as I don’t buy them.

How would I get the money? I wouldn’t faff about. Sign the ticket immediately, get the lump-sum payout. If the jackpot’s about half a billion dollar, I’m thinking I’d net 150 million after taxes. To cut off the people looking for handouts, I’d give my father, mother-in-law, stepdaughter, and most of my siblings (including my two close-as-sister friends) a million each; half a million to each niece & nephew; and a hundred thousand to my aunts, uncle, and cousins I like. When other relatives ask for money, I’d reply that I didn’t overlook them by accident, but because I don’t like them.

19

I’d be moving (by myself*) this weekend, getting everything of value that I wanted to keep** out of my apartment.

Having read one of those advice articles today, what sticks out to me was the warnings about how everyone around them turned into vampires, demanding their money. I could totally see that happening with some of the people I know. I also have some relatives I haven’t seen or heard from in 20 years and some former friends I haven’t seen in 12 that I’m absolutely sure would be trying to look me up and be all smiles and happy trying to ingratiate themselves back into my life.

  • Tell my parents? Sure, then mom tells people from her church, then everyone knows I have a ticket that I haven’t claimed yet. Same with other relatives. My family doesn’t keep secrets at all. Hell, I’m not sure I could ever eat a meal in a restaurant with them again because it would immediately be yelled all over the place. LOTTERY WINNER AT THIS TABLE!!!
    ** The stuff that’s easily replaced, like TV and furniture? Fuck it. I can get that stuff later at my leisure - and hire professionals to do it. If it’s stolen, not a big deal, I’ll be buying better stuff anyway.
20

My husband is a financial advisor, so I’ve got that one crossed off already. But, yeah, I’d put the ticket in a safe deposit box while getting all the logistics nailed down, such as who we’d claim the money with, setting up a trust, etc. I’d definitely have a new place lined up, bought by a trust and preferably in a town where no one knew who were were, before I cashed it in.