If you won the lottery, would you go public?

[Frosty6611]

If you won the jackpot on the lottery would you go public? I think i’d just tell my close friends and family and start a new life somewhere.

I would hand in my notice 'for personal reasons' and ask my manager not to disclose that I was leaving. I'd then tell people I was going on holiday and quietly not come back.

Apparently people go public because Camelot say to them that they will give access to the best accountants, financial advice, legal advice, publicists,security etc
and also put them in touch with others who have won big to get advice.
If they don’t go along with going public then they are basically on their own and run the risk that someone will leak their win to the press. They will then have to ‘manage’ this on their own.

No way would I go public. I don't play anyway so never likely to happen but if it it did I would gift some to close family and friends. Invest some in a family trust for grandchildren and set up a charity foundation for small local charities. Keep a small proportion for holidays, maybe move house, new car or whatever.

It’s not the begging letters you need to worry about.
It’s the friends and family that will all of a sudden start discussing their financial hardships with you.
Tradesmen thinking they can add a few extra zeros when they give you a quote.

Oh, and people will judge you as some stuck up snob because you have perhaps bought a nice home and a few nice cars or similar.

Oh, and you will get more junk mail.

Oh and get ready to having to justify any purchase over £10k for money laundering purposes.
Not all these people keep quiet, so if you do achieve keeping it quiet, then you have done well.

I’m full of “ohs and woes” this morning.

Me too! Oh well, fingers crossed for next week

This convo comes up every now and then with DH, we’re not regular players but I do have a little daydream whenever we buy a ticket.
Current plan if it’s over 3 mill is to put some money in trust for our children that they will be able to access when they were older. Then we’d give his Nan and her partner some money as they both have health issues and very little income.
We’ve talked about giving money to both sets of parents but that’d lead to requests guilt trips about helping siblings...and we have some other very greedy family members so...best to keep it on the DL.

I’d have to keep quiet because I’m such a soft touch - I’m a NWM single mum of three, and I’ve even given money to someone who advertised in the ‘Eye Need’ section of ‘Private Eye’, ffs, even though odds are he’s a Nigerian scammer or some such. My dear old dad always said he’d rather give money to ten apparently needy people, and have nine be charlatans, than give to no-one and have the genuine bloke go home hungry. I’d have to hire someone to read the begging letters for me. And an investigator to check them out. I’d also spend a significant sum ruining my enemies, so I’d probably end up broke.

No because I don't want to be murdered or have a family member taken hostage and murdered.

I wouldn't go public. In fact I probably would tell no one.
As for what I'd do it would depend on the amount. I like earning a lot working from home so I am not sure I would stop that.

Mind you I have had a premium bond since the 1960s and that's not come up once yet so I am not holding my breath.

Does anyone remember that couple of Location Location Location a few years ago who had won the lottery & wanted to buy a posh house in Harrogate? All went wrong for them sadly.

I vaguely remember... all went wrong how?

I googled it. Basically, they "only' won 1.85 million, gave up their jobs and blew it all on dumb shit like 5* holidays and sports cars, and then said "wow it's hard being rich" when they realised they were broke.

Definitely not the the kind of warning story that would apply to anyone with an ounce of common sense tbf.

I read an article years ago that said if you went public, the lotto admin would give you advice and help you. But if you chose to stay anonymous, they wouldn't help you. But then I've read stories of people who's lives were ruined by going public. I wouldn't. I would certainly quit my job and travel, help out family. But I couldn't stand the begging letters from strangers.

Keep quiet and don’t squander it on family and friends. I certainly wouldn’t. The only time they’d know i had money is when it leave a little bit in my will for them. My kids wouldn’t even know.

The family who won (and spent) £1.8 million were the Griffiths. It seems that it was a mixture of really bad luck and poor financial decision making.

Definitely not, I'd only tell a handful of people and even then I wouldn't tell them how much I'd won.

On the back of this thread, I have

bought a lottery ticket for the first time in years (when did it stop being a £1?)
Googled Coutts, FYI £1m is minimum deposit. There's a branch not too far from me so I'm sorted
Made a mental list of super pricey stuff I could buy and pass off as fakes (mostly posh bags and shiny jewellery)
Browsed fancy new kitchens
Bookmarked a couple of local cleaners and gardeners
Priced up first class flights to New York for me and DCs for October half term (£13k!)

I would keep it private. I would need 3 million only as I only want a nice garden flat in Hampstead and to send my family on holidays. I’d still go to work. And get a wee bit of surgery.

Before I played the lottery online I always used to worry about handing over my ticket to a shop assistant for them to check whether i’d won or not. Surely it would be so easy for them to say I hadn’t won (when I had) and they then keep the ticket for themselves
I always make sure I take my ticket back.

I'd keep quiet and with those kind of winnings you could hire some financial advisors. I've already got some ideas as to how I can spend some money without drawing attention to myself.

Has anyone else read this?www.<a class="break-all" href="https://amazon.co.uk/Did-Mention-Won-Lottery-shopping-ebook/dp/B00DAERP2Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&keywords=did%20i%20mention%20i%20won%20the%20lottery&ie=UTF8&qid=1534100577&sr=1-1&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-am-i-being-unreasonable-3330064-If-you-won-the-lottery-would-you-go-public" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">amazon.co.uk/Did-Mention-Won-Lottery-shopping-ebook/dp/B00DAERP2Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1534100577&sr=1-1&keywords=did+i+mention+i+won+the+lottery

After reading I've realised that if we won I don't think anyone would even notice... we would probably move area and we only have a few friends and my husband has his own business so no one would notice that way and I haven't been in my job that long so no one would care there! My mum and dad would get a bungalow probably near where we moved and they don't really have any friends either. Husbands family would get houses/cash and we would probably see them even less than we do now because we would be off touring the world... it's actually made me a bit sad that we are loners 😳

I wouldn’t go public but would tell family and friends (although not definitely how much).

I only have two siblings and one step sibling and DH has one sibling. No cousins any of us see so wouldn’t be bothered about them - they wouldn’t find out through us or our siblings.

We know who our close friends are and who we can rely on so wouldn’t have a problem with them knowing and would love to treat them and their children.

The first thing I would do would go on a long fabulous holiday while I thought of what to do with the money. No actually, that would be the thing i’d do after paying off the last of my mum’s mortgage and transfer some money to her account so she would know she could have a comfortable retirement instead of struggling