This video commercial from the New York Lottery shows Louis Eisenberg, the then biggest ever lottery winner with $5 million.
The trouble is he is now broke and living on social security in a trailer park …
… until then, people actually asked him for financial advice:
All of a sudden, people were asking, ‘Lou, what about this?’ ‘What about that?’
All because he – temporarily – won $5 million!
Why anyone would think that winning the lottery qualifies someone to give investment advice is beyond me. (If it was advice on how not to manage a windfall, that would be another matter.)
That said, there are lot’s of other people out there whose advice is likely to be worse – certain investment gurus and life insurance sales people come to mind
Great thoughts traineeinvestor.
I have seen only a small hand full of winners who actually went to the trouble of seeking advice as to how to keep and grow their winnings. This seems the biggest reason so many go broke after only a few years or less.
Most won’t win ever,but those who do don’t seem to know how to act once they have that amount of cash available.
Advice? How can one give advice on money,if they themselves don’t know what to do with their own money?
I wonder how many of the other millionaires shown in the clip are broke now?
@ ML – ‘dunno … but, popular wisdom says that 80% of lottery winners are broke after 5 years. I don’t believe these numbers (I’m working on better ones), but the sentiment is right.