Lottery Win Turns Sour After Friend Asks How Much They’ll Be Giving Away To Newlyweds

A lot of people have likely wondered what they would do with the money if they won the lottery. But arguably only a few considered sharing the winnings with their friends.

The redditor u/Feisty-Put2529 said that’s what she would do when her friend Sarah won the lottery while at a destination wedding. She got the ticket as a wedding favor, which is why the OP asked how much of the winnings Sarah was going to give to the happy couple—a question that was not well-received by most.

The chances of winning a lottery are in no way favorable for the optimistic ticket holder; depending on certain factors, the odds can be as low as one in hundreds of millions. Investopedia suggested that the chances of winning the jackpot in a Powerball drawing, for instance, are 1 in 292.2 million, to be exact.

Investopedia also provided some numbers for comparison, pointing out that the chances of death or injury from lightning in a given year are 1 in 1,222,000, chances of dying from a hornet, wasp, or bee sting during your lifetime are 1 in 57,825, while dying in a cataclysmic storm—1 in 35,074; even an avid lottery player would presumably consider such events quite unlikely to happen (yet they might continue buying lottery tickets nevertheless).

Even such odds can’t deter certain people from trying their luck time and again. Every year, thousands of people in the US buy tickets in the hopes of changing their life overnight, which adds up to $370 per person annually spent on lottery tickets (based on 2021 data, Investopedia reports). Studies found that in Minnesota, for example, one-fifth of lottery players accounted for over 70% of lottery receipts, while in Pennsylvania, roughly 30% of players accounted for nearly 80% of the entire lottery revenue.

Even though there’s no certain path to winning the lottery, there are arguably ways to increase your chances; mathematician Skip Garibaldi discussed some of them with Wired, adding that some lotteries are easier to win than others. Garibaldi suggested that for games like Powerball, you’d like to be the only one who wins the jackpot so you don’t have to share it and in order to do that, you should pick unpopular numbers.

“Don’t pick dates, for example, because a lot of people gamble based on dates,” he said. “Other advice might be, if you look at the ticket where you pick your numbers, don't just pick a column of numbers on that ticket, for example, because some people will do that.” Despite his own insight on how to increase one’s chances of winning, the mathematician concluded that, “It’s gambling; you might get lucky, but it’s really getting lucky”.

Some people, born under a lucky star, come out victorious in such gambles, typically with quite significantly fuller pockets. In the UK, for instance, there have been roughly 6,800 new millionaires created by the National Lottery since 1994. Some lotteries, however, don’t confine themselves to millions and turn some people into billionaires in a matter of seconds.

AP News has covered the 10 largest US lottery jackpots ever won, eight of which comprised an amount surpassing a billion dollars. The largest sum ever won—so far, at least—was $2.04 billion on November 8, 2022 in California. Other grand winners include $1.586 billion in January of 2016 shared by three people based in California, Florida, and Tennessee, and a recent win (August 8, 2023) of $1.58 billion in Florida.

Be that as it may, winning mind-bogglingly large amounts of money doesn’t always change one’s life for the better. Business Insider covered stories of lottery winners’ lives going south after obtaining the money, including the one of William "Bud" Post, who was $1 million dollars in debt within a year after winning $16.2 million in 1988. Among other unfortunate stories was also one about Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr—winner of a $315 million multistate Powerball draw in 2002—who lost his fortune just four years after, due to two robberies and a lawsuit.

The sum won by the OP’s friend seemingly wasn’t a life-changing amount, but it was enough to cause trouble as well. Even though the redditor said she intended no harm with the question, the majority of AITA community members agreed with the people calling her a jerk for asking Sarah about the money.