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- The study surveyed over 3,000 lottery winners on their mental health, happiness and life satisfaction several years after winning big cash prizes.
- Most of the winners reported greater satisfaction with life, but less significant changes in mental health and happiness.
- The recent jackpots Mega Millions and Powerball could be different, given the size of the prices.
You've probably already heard the horror stories about lottery winners: Someone earns a huge cash prize. Life is Beautiful. But then, things darken and what began as an unfathomable blessing slowly turns out to be a curse.
The downward spiral is usually caused by a factor or a combination of several factors: the winners do not manage the money that disappears after a few years; family and friends do not stop asking for money and get angry with all the favors dodged; a life without work or responsibility loses its meaning; or, in the worst case, the winner becomes a mark for local criminals, as was the case for the 20-year-old lottery winner Craigory Burch Jr after the assassination of a group masked men during a home invasion in 2016.
These scenarios all played among the winners of the lottery. However, despite the deterministic saying that "winning the lottery will ruin your life," a recent study shows that winning big cash prizes often results in a large increase in life satisfaction in the long run.
The study, led by researchers from the Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm University and New York University, covers 3,000 Swedish lottery winners who won a total of $ 277 million five 22 years ago. The researchers asked them to answer questions such as: "All things considered, what pleasure would you say you are?" and, "By taking all things together in your life, how much do you say you are with your life these last days?"
Participants reported being generally more satisfied with their lives after winning the lottery.
"Grand prize winners are experiencing a sustained increase in overall life satisfaction, which has lasted for more than ten years and shows no sign of disappearing over time," the researchers wrote.
Sudden wealth, however, seemed to have less significant effects on mental health and happiness.
"… For the sake of happiness, we have not found any strong evidence that lottery winners are happier in the long run, but there is also strong evidence that they are more satisfied with their lives at home." long term, "said Dr. Daniel Cesarini, co-author. of the study, said Time.
Most lottery winners do not go bankrupt?
People often say that most lottery winners end up going bankrupt. This is partly thanks to an often quoted statistic from the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) that 70% of winners in the lottery go bankrupt a few years after their victory. In January, however, the NEFE stated that the statistics are not supported by research.
The recent study also showed that most lottery winners did not exceed their winnings. In fact, the researchers found that most of the winners did not even quit their jobs.
"We saw that people who earned big money were even richer 10 years after the fact, compared to people who earned small sums of money," said Cesarini. "In addition, if you consider problems such as the supply of labor, people who earn large amounts reduce work, but it is quite rare that they stop smoking. They have mainly reduced their numbers by taking longer holidays. "
Mega Millions and Powerball
Nevertheless, the 2018 study focused only on winning lottery winners between $ 100,000 and $ 2 million. The recent jackpots of Mega Millions and Powerball – $ 1.6 billion and $ 750 million, respectively – are arguably totally different animals.
"The prices for Mega Millions are far more important than anything we've studied – we've looked at people who have earned up to $ 2 million," Cesarini said. "I'm sure the people who win much bigger prizes are struggling with some of the challenges you would not face if you won a million dollars."
The recent study was also conducted in Sweden, and it is possible that the American culture has something to suggest that could lead the winners to manage their sudden fortune in a different way.
"It's hard to tell if the results would be different if we conducted this study in America," said Cesarini. "I guess the results would not be radically different.There are ways in which money could help the United States compared to Sweden, for example for health care, but I would not be shocked if Someone was conducting a similar study in the United States and came to similar conclusions, but there are some reasons to think that the results could be different. "
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