If one of your adult kids won the lottery

[Hedgeoffressian]

If you have two grown children. One of them wins a substantial sum on the lottery. Your other child is very poor living from one pay day to the next and has to budget to make sure they can pay for life’s essentials. Would this affect what you leave your children in your will and would you leave the majority of your assets to the child who needs it most? Or would you split it between them evenly?

I personally would leave the majority to the child who has nothing. Would you do the same?

Disclaimer to add this hasn’t affected me in real life. It’s something I have wondered about though.

I would leave them all the same although it might be done differently eg leave one the house, the other the financial equivalent or jewellery etc. It’s not just about money, but also possessions that are passed down and whilst they may be valuable, they aren’t necessarily inherited with the intention of selling. Therefore, the money in that child’s bank account is irrelevant.

I'd split it completely evenly. Firstly, circumstances can change in a heartbeat- I've seen it happen many times in real life. It only takes a life changing accident or some kind of tragedy/circumstance for things to switch around completely.

Secondly, I would hope that the sibling with the lottery win would help their struggling sibling out.

Thirdly, I've seen the consequences of unequal wills and no matter how it's explained it is usually interpreted as you love X more than me. It can ruin sibling relationships and I wouldnt want that to happen due to me.

What bad luck did they have?

Substance abuse, gambling?

So many people feeling entitled to tell their mythical adult children what to do with their mythical winnings. This is why people keep lottery wins private or understate the amount won.

I would ask the lottery winner if they could use the money or would they rather the inheritance all go to the struggling one. Leaving it as a surprise would be horrible for their relationship.

I’ve just asked my family what they would do in this situation. My children (7 and 9) both said they would split it equally between both kids. Youngest child said they would tell their lottery winning child to give some of their winnings to the sibling. My husband wasn’t so sure and was more of the opinion that he would split it evenly between the two. Interesting to see the difference of opinion between children and adults.

So many people feeling entitled to tell their parents they'd better leave their worldly good evenly because "otherwise they love me less" Aww diddums.

Firstly this has not happened to me in real life (as I said so in my original post).

Secondly, poor people aren’t always poor because of their own bad choices. Sometimes things happen outside of people’s control.

the one who makes shrewd financial decisions

A large lottery win isn't making shrewd financial decisions

As you have already realised. I should have carried on reading

If one child didn't have a house I would give them a house to live in but not sell. And the rest to be split equally. If the kid didn't want to live in the house then it must be sold and split equally.

Essentially you can have this stable secure home, if you don't want it you don't get any extra.

It's a hard one. Lottery winner was lucky. But these things are your last statement to your children about how you feel about them. I couldn't make one of my children think I love them any less.

I wouldn't expect an adult child to share their money with their sibling either though. They're not responsible for eachother, they have their own children and grandchildren to think about.

I'd discuss it with the kids.

If the lottery winner split his winnings evenly around the family after winning, then the assets are split equally.

If the lottery winner was a tight arse, I'd tell them that I love them both equally, but that the poorer one could make better use of the assets (although truly sentimental items WOULD be split.

If the lottery winner squandered it and had more than the value of my assets left, I'd give to the poorer one.

I'd still split it equally because it's really not about the money.

I also can't imagine one child having a substantial win and not helping the others so their lives where a little more comfortable.

Do any of you actually play the lottery?

You're statistically more likely to drop dead buying a lottery ticket than win. 😂

I get this is a hypothetical ethical debate but it’s opening an unnecessary can of worms discussing it with all your family isn’t it?

Obviously your children are too young to give any sort of opinion beyond a naive concept of “fairness”
Young children can’t grasp the concept or implications of wealth and don’t understand family politics.

If it was as stark a difference as penniless vs multimillionaire, I'd split it according to need. It's pure luck that one of them has ended up so well off, not hard work so I wouldn't feel bad about helping the other more. If it was a small win that just left them mortgage free/comfortably off, I'd share it evenly.

In situations not involving a lottery win, I'd always share the money equally unless something like major disability was a factor.

Of course young kids would agree to share but... I've had an unearned windfall as an adult and if you have your own kids, a mortgage and a DH with siblings too etc it's not as simple as giving a huge chunk of your wealth to your own siblings. If you win several million then yes, pay off everyones mortgages, but most lottery wins are much smaller than that.

Sorry, badly edited- I meant that your youngest understandably sees things as a child would , but in reality you might not share a win with an adult sibling because of the reasons mentioned above.

That seems to be true in a lot of cases.
My 2 DS’s know I love them equally and I’ve helped them both equally through life. If one of mine were to win an amount to set them up for life I’d like to think they’d share but if they didn’t I would tell them I was leaving everything to the non winner. It’s not about who I love more or less, it’s about them having an equal chance in life. I’d like to think they’d understand.

Split equally unless there are major medical issues affecting the poorer child.

Even if you remove the mythical lottery win..
If you were in the good financial position of being able to leave significant assets to your dc in the event of your death then why would one of your (hypothetical) adult children be left barely affording to feed themselves while you were alive?

You'd offer financial support before you died (or the majority of your money was spent on your care home) wouldn’t you?

This exactly. I would tell them how disappointed I was in them too.

I'd split equally. But I'd do everything I reasonably could to help out the poorer child now and reduce my estate (before the care home charges do it for me)

I like to think that the richer sibling would help out the other- presuming the struggling one is hardworking and struggling through no fault of their own ie no drugs or gambling!
I would also expect to be able to sit my kids down and explain why I was giving my money to whoever I give it to and for them to understand.
If it was me and my sister I know we’d both be fine with the other one having the inheritance if we needed it more.
My parents have helped my sister financially and I’m more than ok with that.

I have adult dc. One is wealthy. When we've talked about inheritance they have insisted they don't want anything and to split between poorer siblings. They also have helped their siblings financially from time to time. I'd like to think most people who were wealthy would feel the same way

Buying a lottery ticket as a shrewd financial investment? Seriously