Today’s Daily Mail asks it’s readers a question: “Are you £195,707,000 richer?
This because a British ticket-holder has scooped a record EuroMillions jackpot in the biggest National Lottery win of all time.
This FIRST thing the winner has to do is to decide whether or not to go public!
The FACTS are that for MOST people the choice is stark: Live a lie or endure the publicity.
I say most as most people have relationships such as spouses (or ex-souses), family (children, parents, siblings). There are some people without close family but then there are friends.
A decision to remain anonymous means that these people have to be included in the deception. The problem with secrets is that the more people who are party to them the harder it is to maintain it. That the truth will leak out over time is more or less inevitable.
A decision to remain anonymous means that the person must come up with explanations for their sudden increase in wealth. The greater the change (from before the win to after the win) the greater the difficulty!
I for instance drive a 2019 KIA Venga. Were I to suddenly purchase the car in the above image – a Bentley Flying Spur Mulliner saloon – my neighbours would not fail to notice! Nor would the parishioners who attend the local parish church on Sunday mornings!
In other words, if you would like to remain anonymous and to stay anonymous, the advice I would give you is not mine but my late father’s who was a lot wiser than me! He said that the best thing for a winner in the position that is the subject of today’s post would be to give the vast majority of it away to charity! After seeing their family and friends all right.
My further comment: Of course if one was perverse enough to be minded to give the vast bulk of it away and to endure the publicity then one could always donate the money to the Conservative Party! Were one to do so, one would doubtless be given a seat in the House of Lords and a knighthood! Giving the money to a charity would only result in the knighthood!
Wise words from your late father and just what I would do, altho’ that is purely academic as it wasn’t me who won it!