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Does Anyone know Anyone who has ever won the Lottery?


cyaxrex

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Ok, this has been bugging me all week. I had a potential buyer on another platform recently who wanted me to help him write his book ‘No One Ever Wins’ - or something like that.

In short, this guy says that it is easy for anyone to prove that no one ever actually wins the lottery (and that it is all a huge scam), due to the simple fact that no one knows anyone who knows anyone who has ever won the big jackpot.

The idea is simple, if you are only ever six steps away from Hitler, you should only ever be six (at the most) away from someone who has won the lottery. Likewise, almost everyone has met or knows someone who has met a celebrity (I once served prosecco to Ray Liotta) but no one actually knows a lottery winner even though the number of winners grows each and every week.

Now I turned this down as there was lots of complex maths that I couldn’t get my head around. However, just as a bit of a social experiment, does anyone actually know someone who has ever won the full lottery jackpot. Not a fiver, not $200 and odd thousand, the full, giant cheque jackpot?

Jut asking. It’s very interesting for me you see, as I live on a very small island where a new winner is announced every week and before this, I had already heard lots of talk in passing about how playing is pointless because it is all a big scam.

So, do you know someone or someone in your immediate circle of friends who knows a lottery jackpot winner?

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In short, no.

I think he had a silly premise. Unless he has a great conspiracy theory to go with it, in which case I’m all ears! I do not know any lottery millionaires, but thinking about the broader question (people who come into fabulous wealth from a prior “poor/nomal” background), here’s some stories:

  • there’s the entrepreneur who started a business that went well. Bit boring. No stories. Hard work, pride and steady growth.
  • the racist, drunken Glaswegian oilman who had a rather good position in a major oil company. He’d need 2 days detox before he could go to work in his expensive suit, and the difference in personality and dress was remarkable. I liked him, despite his challenging personality, and he liked me because of my challenges. I haven’t heard from him lately, but I understand he’s somewhere in Africa gunrunning (I’m inclined to believe him). He got fired from his oil company for “opinions” if I remember right.
  • tourist millionaires (big hotel owners etc rather than tourists dripping with gold): oh, I know lots of these. Overly concerned penny-pinchers who who sacrifice their own mom for a few extra tourist dollars. Unlike the oilman, there’s no honesty, it’s all about $$$
  • lottery winners: the sensible ones stfu about it don’t they? I mean anyone who has their pic with exploding champagne bottles usually has a divorce and all the rest of it 4 months later because “we couldn’t handle the pressure”. Or that yob bloke who got that massive country pile and turned it into a drink-drug chav den to the horror of the middle class retirees in that small village.
  • I won £250 on the govt bonds when I was 6 and my parents spent it all. Boo.
  • The new Duke of Westminster had a tidy lottery win recently.

En bref: it’s probably a good idea to not display your wealth, as Kim Kardashian and her missing ring are finding out today.

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I’m sure we’re all within six steps of a lottery winner, it’s just that we can’t see the links because the lines of connection are through ordinary people and their contacts aren’t public knowledge. That kind of thing only works with celebrities (and dictators).

But, to answer your question, I don’t either.

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Well, I’ve been asking people for a week now and with social media and all, you would expect to be able to draw a link to someone somewhere. Interestingly, it does seem like a lot of people know someone who has got wealthy by other means such as a huge compensation payout, marriage or business idea. In this case, I don’t buy the idea that lottery winners suddenly go into hiding. In comparison, after all, a lottery jackpot is small change compared to your average rich person’s holdings. In fact, I’ve spent enough time in hospitality to know that rich people love to rub your face in their wealth rather than hide it. (Unless the tax man is around).

I’m falling over the side of the fence that says its all a big scam and I’m pleased I’ve never bothered buying a ticket. That said, I used to have a thing for picking winning scratch cards. If there was a group of old women loitering around the counter in my old local petrol station scratching their cards and losing, I’d buy the same cards which they just had, as I figured that it upped my odds. I can’t remember if it was a workable system in the long term but I did used to land on the odd fiver quite frequently.

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I do know people who have received money from the UK National Lottery fund because they were running a charity or youth group, and that’s one of the things the Lottery does with the money it raises.

Some of the Paralympians thanked the National Lottery for money that allowed them to get equipment for training etc.

So money is definitely flowing out of the Lottery into deserving causes. We can be sure that it’s not a complete scam! 🙂

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Yes yes yes. At work we won the UK lottery. There was 26 of us in the syndicate, so by the time we split the pot we ended up with over £80,000 each.

They always have lottery winners in the local papers here unless be winner decide to keep it private.

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I dunno about all this… My conspiracy sense is tingling. If the lottery is already paying writer whatever his name is to write their blog, I’ll bet that they will be paying you newbie sellers to help keep the lie alive.

Of course, I will accept the idea that some people do/might win the lottery. However, neither answers thus far have detailed someone who knows a real jackpot winner. We have one syndicate winner and someone who met someone once. Also Sorry Sarah, £80,000 grand each and you ended up on Fiverr? I could have retired on that and became a beekeeper but that’s just me, I’m not really into money.

Well done though and just out of curiosity, do you still play the lottery even after winning a big wad of cash already?

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  • 2 years later...

I know this is an old post, but I was brought here because my husband and I had the same conversation last night and did some math. We live in Ohio, population 11.66 million people as of 2017. Ohio started it’s BIG jackpot 6/6 lottery in 1983. There are two drawings per week, 52 weeks per year for a total of 104 potential BIG winners per year. Now, you can assume that these winners will be bragging, or even sharing their winnings in one way or another with at least 20 people each. That’s 2,080 people that have 1st hand knowledge or have directly benefited from the winnings per year. That’s 72,000 people since 1983 in Ohio alone. Now those 72,000 people are going to talk. If my Mom won the lottery and gave me a chunk, I’m going to tell, at the very least, my closest friends. Let’s say 15 people. If everyone did, and human nature dictates they would, that’s 1,080,000 people with 2nd hand knowledge of someone that won the big jackpot. Now…I worked in retail for 15 years selling lottery tickets every single day. Having COUNTLESS conversations with people about lottery, the odds of winning, etc. In all of those years, not a single person ever mentioned knowing anyone that won. Taking all of this into consideration, every American should know at least one person, even if it’s just a friend of a friend that won the jackpot. The lottery is nothing but a huge scam on Americans. I say Americans because I notice that everyone posting that knows someone is not from the U.S. Perhaps foreign lotteries are still legit. Every American that has ever spent even $1.00 on this giant hoax should get together and file a huge class action suit. Audit the records. make them prove every winner in a court of law. I’d bet $1.00 that they couldn’t. On a side note…all of the proceeds from the Ohio Lottery are supposed to go to Ohio Schools. If you live in Ohio, you know the schools get nothing.

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I know this is an old post, but I was brought here because my husband and I had the same conversation last night and did some math. We live in Ohio, population 11.66 million people as of 2017. Ohio started it’s BIG jackpot 6/6 lottery in 1983. There are two drawings per week, 52 weeks per year for a total of 104 potential BIG winners per year. Now, you can assume that these winners will be bragging, or even sharing their winnings in one way or another with at least 20 people each. That’s 2,080 people that have 1st hand knowledge or have directly benefited from the winnings per year. That’s 72,000 people since 1983 in Ohio alone. Now those 72,000 people are going to talk. If my Mom won the lottery and gave me a chunk, I’m going to tell, at the very least, my closest friends. Let’s say 15 people. If everyone did, and human nature dictates they would, that’s 1,080,000 people with 2nd hand knowledge of someone that won the big jackpot. Now…I worked in retail for 15 years selling lottery tickets every single day. Having COUNTLESS conversations with people about lottery, the odds of winning, etc. In all of those years, not a single person ever mentioned knowing anyone that won. Taking all of this into consideration, every American should know at least one person, even if it’s just a friend of a friend that won the jackpot. The lottery is nothing but a huge scam on Americans. I say Americans because I notice that everyone posting that knows someone is not from the U.S. Perhaps foreign lotteries are still legit. Every American that has ever spent even $1.00 on this giant hoax should get together and file a huge class action suit. Audit the records. make them prove every winner in a court of law. I’d bet $1.00 that they couldn’t. On a side note…all of the proceeds from the Ohio Lottery are supposed to go to Ohio Schools. If you live in Ohio, you know the schools get nothing.

Your chances of winning the big jackpot in the lotteries are less than your chance of being hit by lightening or being hit by a meteorite, or being in a car crash.

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