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've said it once, I'll say it again.
RTFT and my further posts 🙄

I’ve read the full thread thanks. I’m not doing an advanced search to see if particular users I disagreed with on page 1 have amended their opinions ten pages in.

I'm an adult with a husband and children. I don't really see my only sibling as an immediate family member any more tbh. Any lottery win would be paying off the mortgage, boosting the pension and setting my DC up, my adult sibling is an independent person all her own with her own family. If it was a huge amount I'd probably give a gift but not a life changing amount, same as I would give my friends.

Would posters really give half (or more than half if you have multiple siblings or you're married and your spouse has a sibling too) of a lottery win to their siblings, reducing the funds available to their own DC? I don't think most people would in reality.

Lol.

Everyone so much happier to share their adult children's wins out than their own.

it’s wild how many people think they’re entitled to a say and/or expectations over their adult child’s finances.

She corrected it five posts after her first one, and then repeatedly referenced this throughout the thread. You simply can't have RTFT if you're still posting to correct her.

I know! The thought of giving it to my sibling helped me see the light 😂

If you don't have much to leave, it matters more, not less. By leaving the poorer child the full amount you stand a better chance of improving their life. For the rich child, half of your modest assets would deliver no material change to their life. That cash would be swallowed up, unnoticed, while it could have been a significant amount if left to the poorer child.

Just another reason to not tell anyone if you win the lottery.

Expected to automatically share it out, being treated different because or pure luck or if worked for working harder.

I mean frankly a 1 mil lottery win isn’t going far. My current house 250k, buy each child a house at 250k that’s 1,250,000 gone so couldn’t even afford to house myself and my children mortgage free 😂

Think for me it would depend on the finer details.

Why the 'poorer' child found themselves in that situation.
How much the lottery win actually was.
The relationship between the parent and children.
What it was the parents had to leave the children - sentimental over financial value.

If I'd won the £142 million jackpot this week, I'd be more than happy for my parents to leave their estate to my siblings. If it was a win that was say £250k, enough to buy a house but not enough that I would be able to live without employment, I'd think it should be split equally still.

When my dad died my siblings and I were all given the same amount of money. One brother who runs an international business gave the money back to the estate as he didn't need it.

Id ask them what they thought would be fair.

I'm an only child, but I'm very confused by all the people assuming that their child would share with their sibling - to play the lottery they must be adults, so surely they'd use the money for their own immediate family and children, rather than splitting it with various uncles/aunts (who they may not even see that often). If one half of a married couple won, would they also need to split not only with their own sibling(s) but also all the sibling(s) of their partner (as the money would really be their partner's good fortune too)? That could easily be three or four other adults before their own children get a share! If it was multimillions, sure, there is enough to go round, but even £1million wouldn't go that far split that many ways.

Because winning the lottery is a screwed financial decision??

I am lol that you must share a lottery win because its down to sheer luck rather than hard work.

Either sharing is morally right or it's not. If I wouldnt share my wages with my sibling why the eff should share a lottery win? I bought a ticket, they didnt. Tough shit I'm afraid.

so many parents are guilty of this. I remember umpteen times as a young adult having to spell out to mine that no, I wasn't inviting sibling to X and they would have never invited Aunt to equivalent so why did they expect it. Took a loooong time for them to understand what I was saying, they just had us as a unit in their head still despite us both being adults and never being that close in the first place.

Of course it's different. A child has no responsibilities so would consider splitting the winnings. An adult sibling with a spouse, dc had a mortgage is much more likely to consider their dc over their siblings.

What is a considerable amount anyway? £200k or £20million?

I would discuss with the lottery winner

Emotional items would be shared equally. Equity and cash to the siblings with no cash.

Saying "you don't know what is going to happen in the future" doesn't apply to a lottery win. Nor does ongoing income in terms of job security etc. I'm presuming when we're talking lottery wins, we're talking jackpot life changing amounts.

Thing is how much do people need to live say a comfortable life and I mean easy life. 80k a year? So you never worry when shopping and can have a few holidays? As in a lovely life, pay for kids uni retire etc.

so say you win the lottery at 30 plan to live till 80 that’s 50 years. That’s 4mil, now 80k in todays money would be a very different amount of money in 50 years time.

yes I know people live perfectly fine below 80k a year but to feel rich where you would genuinely consider just giving some away.

so that’s 4mil before buying houses, before paying for childrens weddings or setting up funds for grand children. Where I live 5 decent ish but not magnificent houses can be 250k ish each want something actually lovely or rich person ish your around 600k each.

So no I wouldn’t share nor would I tell a soul. I would help in the sense of oh niece has a school trip let me help with that, hey let’s all go out for dinner my shout, nice things without financially supporting someone who may actually end up feeling entitled to it and always thinking they should have more because I have more.

Do people understand how hard gifting money to siblings would actually be in practice? You aren’t just throwing a tax free sum at them!

No, I wont be sharing any lottery wins with siblings. My first priority and responsibility is to my own children so I would be setting them up for life if I came into money.

My siblings are more than capable of taking care of themselves and equally, I would also expect them to put their own kids first, as most people should.

So even if you won 100M, they wouldn't get a penny?

I would talk to my children

Always equal as otherwise it feels like favouritism to child.

What if it's £150m?

Quentin Tarantino has never given his mother a bean. She says she's fine with that.