Do Not Rip the Ticket or Otherwise Mutilate It, Part 2

As Luck Would Have It
by Joshua Piven

(Page 2 of 2)

What is it like to realize, in an instant, that you have suddenly become one of the richest people in America? Not by merit, not by hard work, not by good fortune (as in an inheritance), but rather by pure luck — indeed by virtually the purest form of luck, unplanned, un- expected, against incredible, almost unfathomable odds, and by a means that you have eschewed your entire adult life.

There's no single emotion, or rather there are too many emotions at the same time. Steve Roberts experiences a very brief period of elation, followed by a period of abject terror. What if someone realizes he has the winning ticket and tries to steal it? What if the ticket gets lost or, worse, damaged? What if someone does something to his kids, perhaps a kidnapping? He quickly calls the Michigan Lottery Commission and is asked to read the validation numbers below the bar code printed on the ticket. He does, and they confirm that he is the winner. Then come the warnings: Do not get the ticket wet, or it is null and void. Do not rip the ticket or otherwise mutilate it, or it is null and void. And please, do not lose the ticket.

For half an hour, Steve and Peg do not speak. Alone, each contemplates the unimaginable wealth they have just been handed. How much will it be? A hundred million? Two hundred million? More? And what difference would it make if it was more? Would they really be able to spend an extra hundred million? What if there are multiple winners? What will their take be then? How much will they give to their families? To charity? Will they move away from Michigan? Where will their daughter go to school?

Steve quickly puts the ticket in a waterproof bag. He and Peg drive to their daughter's school and make up an excuse to pull her out. Then the three of them drive to the Michigan State Lottery Commission offices, where a throng of reporters has already gathered. Because more than twenty people had picked the correct five numbers (but not the Big Money Ball), there are many other winners arriving, each entitled to a $150,000 payout. With each arrival, the shouting begins anew: "Are you the Big Game winner?" "Did you win the big money?" "How much did you win?"

Fearing for his family's safety as well as their privacy, Steve says nothing as he enters the building. After validating his ticket, the lottery commission decides on a ruse to protect the family's privacy for the time being. Steve will be issued one of the large "TV checks" that winners hold up in front of the television cameras. Except, they all agree, his check will read $150,000, not the $181.5 million that he's actually won (there was one other Big Money Ball winner). Steve is relieved, but he knows it's only a temporary reprieve. By law he will be forced to go public when the lottery commission officially announces he's won.

The commission begins to tell him the practical ramifications of his extraordinary luck. His $181.5 million? Since he's suddenly in the highest tax bracket, it's closer to $120 million, after paying the tax man. Does he want the lump sum or the twenty-year annuity? He changes his former preference and chooses the lump sum, and the payout instantly shrinks to $90 million. Does he plan to give any of his winnings away? Of course. Does he realize that gifts over $10,000 are subject to the federal gift tax? No, he hadn't known that. To avoid this tax, he is informed, Steve will need to form a "lottery club," basically a partnership that allows his designated recipients to share in his winnings without paying the tax. His head spinning, Steve must now decide who will join this exclusive club, and how much money each member will receive.

With so many decisions to make, Steve decides to go home and do some thinking. But when he pulls into their street, he sees a crew from Channel 7, the local ABC affiliate, in front of the house. Has there been a leak? Does the press know he's the big winner? Soon more news crews show up, and Steve decides he needs to get his family out of the house. After they contact a friend in the Justice Department, Steve and his family are spirited to a hotel in Frankenmuth, Michigan, for the night. There, finding sleep impossible, he begins to think about how he will distribute his winnings.

He decides to give his immediate family members — mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters — $500,000 each. He also decides to pay off the mortgages of other family members, including aunts and uncles, which will allow them to take early retirement. He will pay the college tuitions of some nieces and nephews, and buy new cars for his two grown sons. Because of estate tax laws, he also decides to set up annuities for his children. And he will give lots of money to various charities.

Next morning, the official press circus begins. Steve and his family have been driven, via limousine, to the civic center in Lan- sing, the state capital. There, entering through an underground garage, they take Governor Engler's private elevator to a meeting room, where they are officially congratulated by the governor. With a press agent supplied by the lottery commission at his side, Steve enters the press conference room. Packed with reporters, the press conference is nationally televised, and the questions are pretty much what he expected. "How does it feel?" "What are you going to do with the money?" "How often do you play the lottery?" It's all a blur. At some point, Steve's press agent informs him that there is a list of two hundred people seeking interviews. Invitations from the morning shows begin pouring in. Steve flies to New York to appear on the Today show and Live with Regis & Kathie Lee. He is interviewed by Bryant Gumbel and Diane Sawyer.

Then, almost as soon as it began, the publicity starts to fade. Within a week the nationals stop calling. After two weeks even the local news reporters pack up their equipment and drive off. Steve is finally able to get back to his life. He decides to work through the summer, at least to finish the jobs he began in the spring. But he soon realizes that his old life is gone. It's as if, at age forty-eight, he's been born into a new existence, one with incredible wealth but also incredible pressures, pressures that he's never experienced before. He now has a new job: wealth management. And everyone's got a hand out.

A recent survey by Forbes found that 37 percent of the four hundred richest Americans are unhappy. According to Steve, there's much truth in the old saw that money can't buy happiness. "Money can't make you happy, but it can make you more unhappy," he says. In fact, psychologists have coined a term, affluenza, to describe a wide range of symptoms that can result from sudden wealth, including shame, anger, fear, guilt, and rampant materialism. Affluenza, sudden wealth syndrome, or whatever the diagnosis, the condition of being instantly rich can have profound consequences, not only psychologically but also socially.

Steve discovered that his good fortune meant acquaintances and friends soon began asking for loans or "investments" in their businesses. He found that normal conversations he had had in his "preluck" life were now emotionally charged land mines, forcing him to filter his words. "In the past, if one of my friends got a new car, it was naturally a topic of conversation," he recalls. "But now, if I talk about a new car, it's bragging."

Similarly, Steve found it difficult to maintain some of his former hobbies, because his newfound wealth was always a topic of con- versation. "I used to really enjoy playing competitive pool, and I played in some tournaments," he says. "But now, people say, 'Why is he playing? He doesn't need the money.' So I don't compete any- more. Simple things just become much more complicated." While he maintained his close friendships, other people became standoffish and, eventually, drifted away.

Indeed, psychologists have found that, while acquiring a vast sum of money can make life easier in many ways, it often makes personal relationships much more difficult. "A flood of economic power can be really destabilizing to your sense of personal balance," says Mark Levy, a California psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. In particular, those who are not born into wealth but rather acquire it through luck (the lottery, the stock market) or other means (business success) often lack the skills necessary to manage money, not simply financially but in their relationships as well. Coming into money will also fundamentally test the basis of relationships, many experts say, and will quickly make bad or unhealthy relationships worse.

Steve continually encountered friends and even slight acquaintances who asked to borrow money, and he mostly obliged them. He estimates that "99 percent" of them came back for more. "At the beginning, you just have no comprehension of the power you have, the responsibility that comes with having so much wealth," he says.

Copyright © 2003 by Joshua Piven. Excerpted by permission of Villard, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

Joshua Piven is the coauthor, with David Borgenicht, of the globally bestselling The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook and its sequels, which have been translated into more than two dozen languages and adapted into a board game and a TV series. He lives in Philadelphia.