to think going public with a lottery win is bonkers?

[WhataPlank]

Just watched a little YT documentary following the lives of lottery winners and I was blown away by how many people reach out to lottery winners to beg money; not just friends and family, ex-colleagues or even ex-friends, but complete strangers with sob stories (both genuine and fake).

Is there some kind of incentive offered by the lottery people to go public? It's obviously in the organiser's interest as its all publicity, but surely there's nothing in it for the winner but absolute misery?
There must be some kind of bonus for announcing it, because why would you want everyone to know!?

Well according to the inflation calculator, today it would be worth just under 3.5 million.

So a nice amount in that she's never worked having lived off the savings and can bring up a family, whether it will last her entire life, I don't know, but her husband has always worked.

I don't think the inflation calculator are that accurate though as they don't take into consideration the massive jump in house prices between the 90s and now.

It doesn't have to be the financial advisor. The estate agent, the hairdresser, the local taxi firm, car showroom. Your neighbours noticing that your shopping is now being delivered by ocado/waitrose/fortnum and Mason and that you have a winter sun tan

Where do you live that your neighbours would call the newspapers if you switched to shopping at Ocado or went on a holiday???? My neighbours go on holiday a lot, it’s never once occurred to me to alert the press 😳 I couldn’t bear living somewhere where everyone was so nosy and interfering . It sounds bloody awful

this, I never take any notice of what friends/family/neighbours do. To be honest I'm too busy in my own life to notice or care.

Exactly. I think people are being a bit OTT here. I mean, sure, people love a gossip but they aren’t going to go running to a national newspaper because someone goes on a holiday or starts shopping at Waitrose. That’s insane. Most people are far too self absorbed to be monitoring their neighbours that closely. If my neighbours started buying fancy cars etc I’d just assume they were earning more. I wouldn’t immediately think OMG they must have won 25 million I must go to the papers! There are many far more likely explanations than winning the lottery and what they spend money of is none of my business and I really don’t care.

I won £130 and £90 for 3 numbers on previous ‘must win’ Lotto draws when no one won the jackpot.
Depends on no one winning the jackpot and the 5 plus bonus ball prize.

However, I’m winning the jackpot this weekend, I’ve got a feeling 😉

I'm guessing you don't live in a small town with a lot of your extended family on the same street/neighbouring streets. All those MN threads where people have issues with extended family all living 5 minutes away.

Then throw a massive lottery win into the mix.

Everyone in your neighbourhood will know quickly enough anyway. So going public probably doesn't feel like a big leap.

This may not be the case for you but different people have different lives.

@GnomeDePlume no, it’s true I don’t live in the same street as all my family members. I don’t know anyone that does to be honest. I wouldn’t choose to live that close in the first place because I value my privacy.

With a lottery win you could easily move if you don’t like the intrusion 🤷🏻‍♀️

I also don’t agree that “everyone in your neighbourhood will know”. Plenty of people in my road have moved house/had extensions done and no one has batted an eyelid. I get it may be harder in a tiny village but in a busy part of London for example no one knows or cares about their neighbours finances so it’s not universally true for everyone that “everyone will know”.

I couldn’t personally live somewhere where everyone was on me all the time about stuff I was doing. Sounds like utter hell to me.

I have probably thought about it more than many. I used to run the office syndicate. While we weren't ever going to win big I had to set it up so that it would work if we did.

It threw up some interesting questions from people's assumptions.

One colleague who didn't initially join the syndicate assumed we would share with everyone in the office. He was a bit shocked when I said we wouldn't, that if we won big he likely wouldn't see people again. He joined the syndicate after that!

Secrecy was another question. I said we would go public as getting 30+ people to keep a secret would be nigh on impossible.

It’s amazing how many people assume they’ll get a split even if they’re not the syndicate.

I worked in various schools and a few had syndicates. There was one of the big rollover euromillions jackpots being discussed one week and in three of the schools staff not in the syndicate had assumed they’d be included.

One woman said that it was “obvious” that the syndicate would just be split 20 ways with the 18 in it getting a full share and the 4 not getting a half a share each. She was raging that they said no, and wouldn’t join as it was a waste of money

People working in banks who deal with high net worth individuals are well used to the confidentiality requirements and aren't going to risk their careers for some wild criminal scheme. They have enough financial knowledge to know they would be the first people the police looked at in the event of an incident.

Besides that, they probably have non lottery winner clients with a lot more money than a lottery winner. Liquid net assets of several 10s of millions would be unremarkable to them.

I work in a bank and while the majority wouldn't, some would. I know colleagues who always get excited over the certificates and broadcast it to anyone who will listen.

I do know the kidnapping point is extreme and very unlikely but not impossible.

@Gizamaluke do you work in a specific high net worth department at your bank? I'm surprised that the average lottery win would be seen as an unusually large amount of money there. They have clients with ridiculous amounts of money. I guess it would be more of an event in a high street branch in an average town.

Maybe the answer is to seek out a specialist department of the bank to handle the investment?

Re: kidnapping - every parent with a kid at Public school is HNW or UHNW pretty much. No real threat I think.

I can't go into detail as per my contract. But if you have a lot of money, it's not just one specific department that will deal with you internally or at least not at all banks.

I think my point has been lost a bit though. This thread was discussing whether to go public or not. I was meaning to say, if you publicly have a lot of money, you have more security options. If you want to keep a lottery win secret then those security options will raise suspicions.

I think it's sensible. It gets it over with. I'd not be able to lie or tell people to mind their business and there's no way I'd keep the same lifestyle to hide it.

I've bought a ticket for tonight..if I win I'll tell you all.