23 year old lottery winner..............

From the article:

Wanless, who is single
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...and is about to get thousands of marriage proposals a year, including dozens from women who wouldn't give him the time of day in high school...

Dave Assman, who owns farmland next to the Wanless ranch...
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Wow, that's an incredibly unfortunate name. If he's married, I hope his wife kept her maiden name. I don't think I'd want to be known as Mrs. Assman...
 
Hmmmmm...23, single, nice looking farm boy, suddenly rich.

Way too young for me :cool: but Mr. Neal Wanless is gonna get real popular very soon.
Maybe we should invite him to join the forum ? :whistle:
 
freebird5825 said:
Hmmmmm...23, single, nice looking farm boy, suddenly rich.

Way too young for me :cool: but Mr. Neal Wanless is gonna get real popular very soon.
Maybe we should invite him to join the forum ? :whistle:
Click to expand...

He needs someone older and experienced and willing to sign a prenup.
 
ziggy29 said:
Wow, that's an incredibly unfortunate name. If he's married, I hope his wife kept her maiden name. I don't think I'd want to be known as Mrs. Assman...
Click to expand...


Even then it wouldn't be pleasant - she'd still be known as the Assman's wife.

If he gets married he should take her name and be done with it...
 
I agree with Dawg, the young man probably won't blow it all but would be interesting to see a follow-up in five or ten years.

I knew a middle-aged man who won a big lottery and broke one of the rules mentioned in the article; they tell the winner to wait a year or two before buying real estate. They guy immediately had a large place built, missed his old neighbors, although he gave the house to relatives so visited by-weekly, didn't like the new house and neighborhood and then had another house built where he lived out his life.

The article also mentions that winners get isolated socially, I didn't notice that happening to my friend; since he was able to retire early, he spent time reconnecting with family and friends including myself and never mentioned winning the lottery. I didn't know until several years later when someone told me. Also, he didn't have a problem with people asking for money. Obviously YMMV.
-----
Edit: I'm not a gambler so I don't get blowing $15.00 on lottery tickets when you are eking out a living.
 
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I was struck by this phrase:

But she said Wanless will likely experience the same sense of isolation that many other large jackpot winners do.
"They've lost their peers. They are substantially different from everyone that they know," she said."
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I imagine that would be quite true for your average person.



I have a friend who won the lottery 2 years ago. He was in late career in finance and was already a millionaire several times over. As were almost all of his friends. Everyone thought it was a novelty that one of their friends won the lottery, but it didn't change any relationships.



He did retire a year after he won, which was maybe 3-4 years earlier than he would have done otherwise. Other than that when I asked what had changed in his life he said "Now when they hand me the wine list I start at the bottom and work my way up".


(he was being modest, he's also a pretty active philanthopist these days)
 
Maurice said:
I was struck by this phrase:
But she said Wanless will likely experience the same sense of isolation that many other large jackpot winners do.
"They've lost their peers. They are substantially different from everyone that they know," she said."
Click to expand...
I imagine that would be quite true for your average person.
Click to expand...

I think so, too. Come to think of it, he might even have to leave his impoverished county, change his name, and establish residency in a big city somewhere if he wants to get away from this isolation. Even then, there is always the possibility that he would be found out.

It's easy to say and think that our problems would all be solved if we won the lottery. But in reality, that would not be the case for many of us. Getting a bonus at work would be much easier to deal with than a lottery win. Nobody asks you to give them money or buy them a car due to your having received a bonus.
 
My friend who won (~45MM) was very much concerned about his name being publicized. Of course the lottery people want to publicize your name, its good advertising.

He hired a lawyer to help him figure out what his options were. His first question to the attorney was 'can I sell the winning ticket'? He hoped to sell it to some investors at a slight loss and let them claim the prize - and the resultant publicity.

Alas, in his state it was not legal.

So, knowing he had to publicly claim the prize, he hired a PR person and gave him the mission to minimize news exposure. He said the PR guy gave him great advice - including advising him to read from a piece of paper at the (obligatory) news conference. He said no TV station will roll a tape of someone reading from a script. They were right.


By and large he has avoided the normal assault from the public that you always hear about. He changed his phone numbers just in case.
 
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