JD Mullane|Bucks County Courier Times
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May 21,2021 was a Friday, a pay day for a lot of us. On that day, someone walked into the 7-Eleven on Trenton Road in Levittown and got paid more than they ever dreamed — they purchased a Pennsylvania Lottery ticket worth $516 million.
The winner hasn’t stepped forward. Not yet.
It’s the stuff of dreams, a half-a-billion bucks. Quit work. Go golfing or fishing or travel anywhere you want. Life becomes an endless summer.
Or will it? Changes will come, and not all of them good.
“You have two reactions almost simultaneously when you come into that kind of sudden wealth,” said Robert Pagliarini, a financial advisor in Irvine, California, who counsels people who find themselves with sudden windfalls. (Phil Gianficaro and I had him as our guest on our latest podcast.)
“First, there’s just the joy. ‘I won! I can’t believe it!’” he said. “But it’s almost immediately followed by another emotion, usually described as panic and dread. People who win this big aren’t used to dealing with this level of wealth and its complexities.”
Those complexities include navigating tax laws and making wise financial decisions. But those are featherweight items compared to the psychological strains that come with a yacht-load of cash.
“First, don’t think you can keep it a secret,” Pagliarini said.
Unlike other states, Pennsylvania has no anonymity protection on lottery wins.
The law requires the Lottery Commission to provide the full name of every big ticket winner to anyone who asks. (Smaller winners have just their first name and last initial published.)
Once it hits social media, the cat’s out of the money bag.
“At that point, your life is going to change in ways you may not want it to,” he said.
Keep an eye on the woodwork, because everyone from siblings to in-laws to second cousins you haven’t seen since their first wedding will be crawling from it to hit you up for cash. They’ll have no misgivings, either.
Unlike a lawsuit settlement or an inheritance, a state lottery jackpot is seen as dumb luck and unearned money —so gimme some of that sugar, cuz.
Said Pagliarini: “I have many, many stories of sudden wealth clients who are hit up right away for money, for donations, from family and friends who say things like, ‘Hey, I got this great idea for opening a restaurant, can you give me money to start it up?’”
You can probably say goodbye to whatever life and lifestyle you had, too.
“With this kind of money, even after taxes, we’re not talking moving up one socioeconomic level from the middle class. We’re talking stratospherically higher than everyone else you’ve ever known in your life, or ever will,” he said.
In his experience, you can’t say, “Sure, I got millions, but I’m going to be the same old me. When it comes to family and friends, money doesn’t matter.”
It’s all that matters, now. Get together with old friends at a bar or a restaurant, and guess who’s picking up the tab? The multi-millionaire. Probably forever, too.
“While you may not change, everyone around you will,” Pagliarini said. “They aren’t going to see you as the same person. They’re going to look at you differently, to treat you differently. I’ve seen it many times. Relationships, no matter how close, can be lost over the money.”
Resentment can lead to lost friendships. Quitting work can lead to social isolation.
“If you win this kind of money, you’re not going into work the next day. Some people do, but most don’t,” Pagliarini said. “The problem with that decision is all of your friends, the people you are closest to, are still working, still getting up at 6 a.m. What are you going to do when everyone’s still working and you have all this money and all this time on your hands? Travel alone? Vacation alone? Maybe you’ll try to go out and find new friends. But what happens to your old friends? Will they feel neglected or jealous?”
He’s counselled so many suddenly wealthy people, from entertainers to athletes to lottery winners, that he wrote “The Sudden Wealth Solution,” which lays out how to handle immense wealth for those unlucky enough to find themselves so lucky.
He recommends hiring a team of consultants to deal with tax laws, financial decisions and media. As for money requests, hand it to your team to say no.
“Have them be the bad guy,” he said.
The biggest decision is one that seems mundane, and it’s the first one a lottery winner must make: take a lump sum or an annuity paid out over 30 years.
“Most people take the lump sum, but I encourage the annuity,” he said.
Lump sum people risk blowing all the dough, where as annuity types get 30 chances.
“You blow millions in the first year, second year, and then around year six or eight, you say, I gotta get control of this. There are more checks on the way. With lump sum, it’s one and done.”
Aside from panic or wise planning, why might our $516 million winner not have stepped forward?
“They may not know they’ve won,” Pagliarini said.
The winning ticket could be in a wallet or a purse, or on a pile of papers on a kitchen counter somewhere in Levittown. But that’s OK.
The winner has a year from the date of purchase to claim the money. You can do a lot of prepping for a new life in that time.
Congrats, and good luck.
Columnist JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.
