What Happens When You Win Lotto?

Just a bit of fun.

Does anyone know the actual answer to these.

I buy my tickets online - do you think if you win big someone calls you? Or do you log into your account and see winner winner!

How long does it take to get the funds to hit your bank account?

How much would you need to win to quit your day job?

Comments

  • +78

    What Happens When You Win Lotto?
    You get many more friends.

    • +33

      Depends if you tell people. I wouldn't tell many that's for sure

      • +10

        I wonder if it's better to just pretend you got a raise at work to explain all your nice things you suddenly have. And tell them you bought your new car on credit, when you actually just bought it outright. Say you have a 30 year mortgage on your huge home you paid cash for, etc. But then you're lying to your friends, that can't be good can it?

        • +21

          Nothing wrong with a white lie.

        • +2

          "Yes this house isn't mine, it's a timeshare I won" is the excuse I'll use for house parties.

        • +1

          I would put it down to winning a "minor" first prize, a couple million maybe, enough to buy a nice big house and car and leave something for the retirement but not enough to splurge around on big parties or handing out grants.

        • +7

          I wouldn't tell anyone. However, what I would do is quit my job, invest the rest of the money into an index fund and live off the dividends.

          If anyone asks, I will just say that I've changed careers and am now looking after the finances of a high net worth individual.

          • +2

            @jmi: At least if you invest in a 30 million dollar mansion though, if you die 15 years from now at least you spent those 15 years enjoying all 30 million dollars of your winnings, instead of just whatever percentage you got back from the fund before you died.

          • @jmi: Yeah can always say 'I work part time/casual from home'

        • -2

          white lies are best with some friends some people go green eye went tell you cash for you car you paid cash for that house.

      • +9

        I remember Barefoot talking about this, and found "Help — We Won the Lotto":

        Here’s what I’d do in your situation:

        First, don’t tell anyone.

        Second, seriously, don’t tell anyone. Trust me on this: nothing good will come from telling people that you’ve won the jackpot…

        Also, I remember reading most winners are worse off a few years after winning:

        Other studies found that instead of getting people out of financial trouble, winning the lottery got people into more trouble, since bankruptcy rates soared for lottery winners three to five years after winning.

        • +2

          Moral of the story: if you win, feel free to send me the funds instead : )

        • +2

          This essentially comes down to money management skills.

          I'm generalising A LOT here but it would be fair to argue that the financial nouse of people who regularly buy tattslotto tickets is lower than the average. Yes some people have disposable income they like to "play with" but when you look at the lines at tattersall outlets, these people probably shouldn't be spending their money on the lotto

          If they can't manage their small income, how are they going to be smart with millions? Unless they immediately speak to a good financial planner/advisor to get some basic education and parameters. they will most likley get themselves into bigger problems.

          • +1

            @Jules_d1: And I have a feeling… you're absolutely correct.

            But beyond money management skills, I believe it's also a matter of character.

            I daresay many of us, me included, just don't have enough… discipline? experience? work ethic? whatever the words I'm searching for, but essentially don't have enough of what it takes to manage the sudden influx of seriously large amounts of money.

            I think I'm fairly disciplined with our family's money, rarely splurge and save where possible (but also enjoy on occasion), BUT if I were to suddenly receive $10 million? Heck.

            I'd like to think I'd do better than the 90% of ultimately worse off lotto winners, but I really won't know until it's tested… which is not very likely since I don't do lotto.

            • +2

              @Member 0230: Without more consideration, if I won $10m right now i would…..

              • Put 100k aside into an everyday account and put the other $9.9m into a 90 day term deposit that I cant touch just to let the impulse dust settle.

              • I would quit my job as its really not my passion and I'm only there to appease pending investment property loan approvals

              • Play golf every day and be happy for the next month or so until I have more direction.

              • Find a very good advisor and work out a strategic plan.

              • I'm sure I'd buy a nice house and car but even if I spent $4m on the house and car, thats $6m left. At a lowly 5% annual return on $6m is $300,000 per year pretax. Pretty sure you could live a very good life on that, especially without a mortgage.

              • I wouldn't even spend that much a year so most would be reinvested and keeping you well ahead of the inflation bell curve.

              I have a good plan…i deserve to win!

              • @Jules_d1: Hahaha. That's awesome, and I actually have something that's not far off from your list — including getting a good financial advisor and the term deposit idea — but my ratios are:

                • splurge 10%
                • give away 10%
                • save/invest/eliminate debt 80%

                Barefoot makes a big deal of the value of giving, and overall I'm in agreement with him.

                Ratios will probably change if I got $1M vs $10M — I don't know that I want to splurge 10% of 10M!

        • People lack self-discipline. Everyone who buys lottery tickets wants to live large.

      • +2

        I wouldn't even tell my wife.

    • +1

      yes, new "friends"

    • +20

      And sometimes you get murdered.

    • +3

      And long lost cousins, aunts, uncles.

      It’s like reverse Nigerian Prince.

    • +1

      And family you never knew you had show up.

      • +1

        Did you not realise you were one-tenth related to a Nigerian prince?

  • +13

    Took me 9 months and a hell of a fight to win my lottery

    • +7

      and you still on OzBargain

      • +16

        That's how he stays rich

      • +2

        i assume they are talking about a kid

        • +26

          I assume he's talking about being born

  • +3

    heart attack

    • +4

      If I won enough money I'd hire a nurse to be around me at all times, with a fully charged defibrillator and stuff. I'm not going out like Mama Cass, just finally starting a very successful solo career and then dying of a heart attack and no one noticing until morning. If I won 100 million dollars then for the rest of my life at least one person at all times is going to be aware that my heart is beating and a huge alarm is going to sound if it ever stops beating. Life suddenly becomes worth living when you've got millions of dollars, I'm sure of it.

      • +1

        What about a stroke?

        • +2

          Nurse will be trained for that too. Dr Dre survived a stroke recently and he says he's doing fine. The nurse just has to remember the RAPID thing, I forget what it means. But that's what I'll be paying her for.

        • Surely given how rich he is, the nurse would not be impartial to giving him an occasional stroke.

      • Wait you aren't married to a Cardiovascular nurse? Maybe I've won the lottery.

    • +2

      I must've got shortchanged. I had one, but winning the lotto didn't come with it!

      • +5

        Considering all the people who don't survive theirs, I'd beg to differ!

        • +1

          Alright, that, I won't deny!

  • +70

    You buy a 3090

  • +13

    you wont see me here anymore……….

    • +7

      I'd come back to gloat.

      • +5

        I'd pay professional joke writers to log in and post comments as me.

      • +2

        Ask for investment advice.

  • +15

    What happens when you win lotto 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of entrants never find out.

    • +3

      Someone did the math

      • +2

        Slow day at work…

      • +20

        Someone did not do the maths

        odds are actually 99.9999875 for each draw (based on 1 in 8 million chance of div 1)

        • -6

          You must be fun at parties

        • skills

        • each draw? aren't all the draws different? like some have more balls than others?

      • +2

        No, they didn't. Missing % sign.

  • +21

    You have to go to Lottoland offices, walk into CEO's office and say you're fired. You got the job until next person comes in..

  • +18

    I know one guy who has won a Saturday Div 1 and have a good friend who stood behind an angry customer swearing at the scanning machine that it doesn't work.

    The Div 1 winner knew he was the winner due to watching the draw. He knew to go to the lotteries commission office and register with his ticket.

    After the due diligence was done he was paid, took weeks.

    The angry customer was furious the machine kept telling him to speak to the attendant (or something like that, it does not flash neon or scream winner winner chicken dinner that would paint a target on the ticket holder), he assumed the machine was faulty. He gave the ticket to the newsagent boss who took him aside, within a minute the guy exited stage left quickly. My friend suspected he hot something big, the agent wasn't supposed to say but said he scooped a $20m draw.

    • +34

      "Sorry sir, your ticket is defective. Let me take it off you and I'll compensate you with 10 additional tickets to the next drawing at no extra cost".

      • +7

        I can’t be the only one paranoid about that?

        • +1

          I am paranoid about this with scratchies. I’ve received them as gifts and they are so much work, I just scan the barcode at the newsagent.

          For a winning ticket the screen shows ****** as the amount, presumably as a privacy measure? Then the cashier hands me $20 and a thumbs up as his pupils dilate profusely.

          Twice now I’ve been paranoid it won more and he keeps the ticket for himself and gives me whatever out of the till.

          • +2

            @dipster: If you were paranoid enough, you'd just scratch the scratchies before handing them over.

            • -1

              @BartholemewH: have u seen those things, some of them are like two pages of puzzles. would take me all day

              • +1

                @dipster: This has to be the laziest thing I have ever heard of someone doing

      • This thread reminded me of this story from a few years back

        https://www.theage.com.au/national/newsagency-worker-fleeces…

    • +78

      I had to read your post 5 times before it made sense

      • +1

        Lol me too

      • +8

        I'm late to work because of it. But I think I worked out the riddle.

        "I know one guy who has won a Saturday Div 1.

        He knew he was the winner due to watching the draw. He knew to go to the lotteries commission office and register with his ticket.

        After the due diligence was done he was paid, took weeks.

        Another friend witnessed what happens when you don't know what you're doing as a lottery winner.

        He stood behind an angry customer one day who was swearing at the scanning machine that it doesn't work.

        The angry customer was furious the machine kept telling him to speak to the attendant (or something like that, it does not flash neon or scream winner winner chicken dinner that would paint a target on the ticket holder), he assumed the machine was faulty. He gave the ticket to the newsagent boss who took him aside, within a minute the guy exited stage left quickly. My friend suspected he hot something big, the agent wasn't supposed to say but said he scooped a $20m draw."

        That man's name…Albert Einstein.

        There wasn't enough evidence to suggest the angry customer didn't know he was a winner. I've never bought a lottery ticket but I would probably try validating it in a machine myself?

      • +2

        Yeah, it was weird how he combined the stories.

        Next time, use a numbered list.

    • +2

      angry customer = winner

    • I would be afraid of handing my ticket over if I knew I won that much

      • Very true….if the machine says seek assistance. Go check it yourself.

      • +1

        Surely attendants and news agency owners aren’t allowed to claim winnings… and due diligence would be done if they gave the ticket away. The lottery people would know when and where it was sold.

        • You'd think that, but no, it isn't the case… or at least wasn't the case when our family owned a newsagency.

        • I worked at a Newsagency that sold LotteryWest tickets. We had as much right and ability to play the Lotto/Scratchies as anyone else, at least this was 6 years ago.

          Theres no way to cheat the machine to print out the "Winning" ticket, and there's no way to "Find" the winning scratchie. We tried lots of times out of curiosity on the scratchies. Impossible.

          The way you know that the ticket won something is that it didn't make noise, but you knew you had a winner. Normally a small winner you got a "Ding ding ding ding ding". If you knew you had a winner (From the self-service scanner) or otherwise, they scan it, and you got no ding, you knew you had something decent.

          • @Fishy932: Obviously there is no way to manipulate the machine or otherwise gain an advantage, but there is a tremendous opportunity for somebody with malicious intent to say that there was nothing on the ticket and offer to dispose of it, keeping it for themselves. Especially if the machine doesn't obviously celebrate major wins.

    • +25

      I once bought the 30mil new year ticket in Melbourne and went up to Sydney for holiday and check my ticket there. The machine popped up the message telling me to speak to the operator. I got so excited thinking I’ve won big (seriously), only to find out from the operator that I have to go back to Melbourne to check the ticket. The 5 seconds waiting for the operator still remains the most excited 5 sec of my life. Lol. Needless to say I won nothing :(

      • same. I bought ticket in QLD, and when returning to Melbourne, Scanned the ticket, thought I won big.

        Eventually, it was just a few bucks. I threw the ticket into bin straightaway. Pointless to fly back from Melbourne just to claim like 7 bulks?

      • +3

        Maybe I should do this to a "friend". Get them an interstate ticket for a gift.

  • +6

    invest in cocaine, hookers, cars and parties.. then in 2 years when all friends left and money run out, get a job again

    • Worth it

    • +2

      Reminds me of a quote from George best when asked what happened to all his money

      “ I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

      George Best

  • If bought online, I assume its a simple process
    If bought at a newsagent, they need to check the ticket and database I assume

  • +3

    If the ticket is registered then about 10 to 15 minutes after the draw the winners details are available to the Tabcorp Lotteries division sales & marketing team when I knew people in the NSW lotteries. Someone will call and you and you may also get a physical visit if in Brissy as this is where the Lotteries division is located for all of OZ nowdays since the state tabs were bought out by QLD TAB, Unitab Tatts and then finally they all ended up with Tabcorp (okay with the one exception, W.A.). The states now have a small sales and marketing team that support the newsagents, but they do not anymore have anything to do with the big winners. In each state there will be an office where you can physically go to o if you want to send it in via snail mail/courier (and hope it gets there!!!!) request a payment for a large win as newagents can only pay up to $1k (this was the value about 10 years ago).

    It was different when each state had it's own lotteries!!!!!!

    • It’s a cash payout of $4000 now in Vic. I think anything more than $1000 the terminal asks you if you want to payout now or customer to keep the ticket and redeem later or at head office.

  • +18

    Whats got 7 balls and f-ks the poor?

    The lottery!

    • +5

      In the UK most of the profits from their lotteries goes to charity, funds local films, goes to all kinds of places. If most of the lottery profits went to charity I might feel better about entering.

      • +3

        Shouldn’t go from middle/lower class to lower class, should go from upper class to lower class

        • +2

          I prefer middle/lower class to lower class compared to the middle/lower class to upper class we have had in Australia for decades.

        • You don't become upper class from playing lotto.

      • When Qld was Golden Casket, all profits went to charity. Now, our government makes lotto and the casinos and.pokies hand a portion to charities. It's now in the form of grants with a formal application process. Several have gotten buses to transport clients.

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