My SO knew a guy in Germany who won about $1 million in the lottery in the early 1970’s.
He bought a Mercedes limo, bought a new condo, and then invested most of the rest of the money in his lover’s printing/publishing company. Oh yeah, he also bought lots of gaudy jewelry and took a few vacations.
Fast forward ten years. Business went belly up, he had to sell the jewelry and the Mercedes to pay bills. Plus, he had to go back to work. Luckily - the condo was paid for and he kept that until the day he died. It was his only wise investment.
While I was living in Germany, there was a great article in Stern (a German magazine) about German Lotto winners. Most blew the money quickly, and stupidly; expensive cars, buy a bar, scammed by family and friends, etc.
One nice story - an elderly woman asked her granddaughter to go buy her lottery ticket, as it was cold and lots of snow. After she gave her the money, grandma figured her granddaughter would forget or buy candy instead, and she went out in the cold and snow after all and bought her ticket. There were three winners that week - one guy in another town, and grandma - plus the ticket her granddaughter did indeed buy for her - that woman got 2/3 of the jackpot because she had two winning tickets.
Another story was when the jackpot in Germany was rather high…as usual, they split it by the number of winners. That week, over 200 people won! It was a disaster for the winners - before waiting to see how many people won, many quit their jobs, bought fancy cars and then - when it came out that so many won, instead of getting millions, they wound up getting about $50,000 each. Not bad, but not worth quitting jobs and buying expensive cars. So, how did it happen that over 200 won? Most of those who won lived on the border of Holland and Germany…Holland had their lottery drawn on Fridays, and Germany on Saturdays. It seems many Germans simply picked the winning numbers in Holland to play in Germany the same week! Over 200 people used this “method” to pick their numbers - the good news is that it actually worked once, but the bad news…
Finally, my story.
I worked every summer in Switzerland. Before I left for the summer, I played my lottery ticket in Germany and gave it to my SO. Off I went.
Two months later, I returned from Switzerland and SO and I were headed off to the USA for a six week vacation. I had two days in Berlin. Looking through my huge stack of mail, one letter was from the German Lottery asking when I intended to stop by and pick up my winnings.
My SO had no idea what the letter was about. In Germany, on lottery tickets, you can put in your name and address when you buy the ticket…not everybody does it, but I always did.
So, day before our trip I go to the lottery office.
I had 5 out of 6 numbers - I won $3,500!
I had put both his name, and mine, on the ticket.
The woman at the lottery office said, “Where is your partner?”
“In the car downstairs - he was the one who lost the ticket. That’s why I am here so late.”
She laughed and said, “Fine - then YOU get the money!”
She paid me cash.