6 Lottery Tips From Powerball Winners
Here are six smart lessons you can learn from how the three Powerball winners each handled their life-changing experience. Find out what the winners did right and wrong.
In January 2016, the Powerball jackpot soared to record-breaking amounts. Three winning tickets were sold for the $1,586.4 billion prize, making Maureen Smith, John and Lisa Robinson, and Mae and Marvin Acosta.This was not only the biggest Powerball winners but the winners of the biggest lottery jackpot ever awarded across the world.
1) Winners Took Their Time Claiming Their Prize
If you have a multi-million lottery ticket in your hand, you might be tempted to claim the prize as soon as possible. After all, once it’s claimed there’s no chance of losing the ticket or having it stolen. However, it’s a good idea not to claim your prize too soon. You’ll have things to get in order and decisions to make before you start.
John and Lisa Robinson went on the Today Show before they even claimed their prize, a reckless move that shocked experts. Although things worked out for the Robinsons, John admitted to being frightened to travel interstate when everyone knew he was carrying a ticket worth millions in his pockets.
Two of the three January 2016 Powerball winners waited to claim their prize. Maureen Smith waited about a month while Mae and Marvin Acosta waited more than six months, claiming they needed the time to assemble a team of advisers.
2) Get Good Legal and Financial Representation
After you’ve verified your options for claiming your lottery prize, you should focus on getting solid legal and financial advice. Each of the three January 2016 Powerball winners did the smart thing and retained legal representation before stepping forward.
When you are dealing with a multi-million prize, you need to have a team of professionals to help you sort out the best ways to maximize your earnings and to protect yourself. At a minimum, you’ll need a lawyer, an accountant, and an investment advisor who are familiar with dealing with windfalls.
3) Lump Sum or Annuity?
Accept a smaller amount of money as a lump sum, or receive the entire amount of the jackpot spread out over 30 years?
In the case of the $1.5 billion January 2016 Powerball jackpot, the three winners each chose between a $310 lump sum (before taxes, close to 40 percent of the winnings) or $533 million (pre-tax) paid out in increasingly greater amounts, starting at $22 million and rising each year.
There are advantages and disadvantages to each choice. With the lump sum, you pay a large amount of taxes all at once, whereas with the annuity, you only pay taxes on the amount you receive each year.
Receiving income each year makes it harder to blow through your entire windfall at once (though some lottery curse victims managed to do so by taking out loans on their future income). On the other hand, with proper investment, your lump sum could bring in greater dividends than your annuity might.
“We’re going to take the lump sum, because we’re not guaranteed tomorrow,”
4) Protect Your Privacy, Control Your Story
It’s tempting to shout your news to the world. As soon as people hear that you’re about to become a multi-millionaire, you’ll become a target. Don’t tell anyone outside of an extremely small circle of trusted friends, relatives, and advisers about your Powerball jackpot win.
Maureen Smith and her husband David Kaltschmidt kept going to work as usual after finding out that they were going to be fabulously rich. They didn’t even tell their adult children that they had won the Powerball jackpot.
5) Don’t Make Major Changes in Your Life
If someone were to ask you what you would do once you became a Powerball winner, you might say something like, “quit my job!” or “sell my house and get a more luxurious one.” But the experts suggest that you don’t make any big moves immediately.
People need structure in their lives and totally changing what you do with your life isn’t good for most people. That might be why John and Lisa Robinson both planned to keep their jobs, despite their $327.8 million windfall. John said, “You can’t sit down and lay down and not do nothing anymore. Because how long are you going to last?”
6) Waterfall of Emotions
It’s natural to think that Powerball winners feel nothing but excitement and joy after winning. But the truth is that winning a huge sum of money has a lot of consequences.
Maureen Smith and David Kaltschmidt said that they were dreading the press conference and attendant publicity. David said that he had lost 10 pounds in the month. Maureen said that she was “afraid it will make me less friendly because of all the worrying.”
Meanwhile, John and Lisa Robinson said that they had been sleepless after realizing they were winners. “More stress comes with that ticket,” Lisa said.
Make sure you make the correct decisions if you win the lottery at Welovetto!
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