Science proves that everything you know about the fate of lottery winners is probably incorrect

 Science has shown that almost everything you think you know about the fates of lottery winners is incorrect

Mega Millions jackpot Friday has reached a record breaking $970 million. Powerball will hold a drawing Saturday for a $430 Million jackpot. The chance to win either the lottery or Powerball will change your life. But, popular theories about what happens to lottery winners are not always true, according a study published in May.

The National Bureau of Economic Research published a study that examined the well-being of 3,362 Swedish lottery winner who had at least $100,000. It also surveyed them five to 22 year after they won the jackpot.

Although the study was done in Sweden, and the prizes for the lottery were not in the millions, Dr. Daniel Cesarini, a New York University economist, says he believes the results wouldn't differ significantly if the study were conducted on Americans who have won multimillion-dollar prizes.

"The Mega Millions prizes go beyond anything we've ever seen. He stated that people have won as much as $2 million. "I think people who win bigger prizes are more likely to wrestle with different challenges than those who win $1 million.

Cesarini also believes that the work he did with Swedish lottery winners will be widely applicable. Cesarini also claims that a separate study of American lottery winners produced similar reactions to his findings.

He stated that "It's difficult to know if results would be different in America." "My guess would have been that the results would not differ significantly." While there are ways that money can help in the United States, such as heath care, it is not surprising that someone would do a similar study here and reach broadly similar results. But, there are also reasons to be cautious about how the results could vary.

Cesarini appears to have dispelled some common misconceptions regarding the fate of lottery winner.

People who win huge lottery jackpots often lose their entire fortune in just a few short years.

TIME has Cesarini telling us that it is common to believe that the more people win the lottery, the more likely they will spend all of it.

The National Endowment for Financial Education has a common but incorrect statistic about lottery winners. It claims that approximately 70% of those who suddenly get a large amount of cash will eventually lose it. The National Endowment for Financial Education disputed this claim in January 2018. They stated that the statistic was not supported with any research.

The "curse of lottery" is a common theme. There's the West Virginia man whose granddaughter and daughter died from overdoses after he won $315,000,000 in 2002. And there's the Kentucky man who claimed $21 million and then lost it all in 2006.

Cesarini claims that he and his co-researchers found that lottery winners who were awarded larger amounts of money, such as $2 million, actually retained their wealth over the ten years following the draw.

"We found that people who had large winnings were still richer 10 years later than people who had small amounts of money," he said. "Also, when you look at things such as labor supply, people who win large sums do reduce their work hours but it's very rare for them quit completely. They tend to take longer vacations in order to reduce their work hours.

Cesarini states that people are conditioned to believe that winners will waste their wealth immediately, but this is uncommon.

He said, "We see that they work a lot less, but they spend money quite intelligently." This is not to suggest that they have not had to deal with issues of self-control or used money in ways that were not in their best interest. Their behavior is more managed than you might believe, if you look at the popular accounts.

All that money will make you miserable later in your life

Researchers found that people who had won at least $100,00 did not experience a significant increase in happiness or mental health. However, it was not clear that this made them happier. Do the Laundry or Win the Lottery - Sometimes the Proven Better Alternative