If I Won a Million in a Lottery

If I won a million dollars in a lottery, after taxes and fees, then most would have to be put away for the future. I would try to preserve most of it in bond funds, so that I could enjoy a decent income every year and no longer have to work for a living. That is not to say, I would quit my job. I probably would keep working, because let's face it, a million bucks ain't what it used to be. I happen to love my job and the people I work with, anyway.

I'd put, say, $600,000 into savings, so that a modest 4% annual return would result in $24,000 a year. Nice to get 24 grand for doing nothing, eh? Stock funds are all well and good, but why risk it if you don't have to?

The other $350,000, I'd spend on furnishing a fabulous house, not a mansion, mind you--but I could afford a nice 3,000 square foot brick home in a hilly area, and surround it with a high fence for security, in case the bottom drops out and the world goes crazy. One never knows. I wouldn't want to live too far out in the sticks, but nearby to my favorite amenities: the police, fire department, and hospital. I like police, I like firemen, and I like doctors. Those are really the necessary professions in a society.

I'd tithe 5%, or $50,000, to worthy individuals who need a bit of help, friends and relatives that need a new car, say. I'd prefer direct contributions to individuals rather than giving to big organizations, because organizations can be like a black hole, and one never knows where the money goes.

What's interesting to me about the lottery is treating it as an experiment into the art of divination. If it were possible to divine a future event, such as a lottery drawing, then that has certain implications, the first being that the future is either predestined and knowable by some beings or else maleable by them in some way. An entity would need to be either powerful or prescient to predict a winning lottery number. Treating a lottery purchase as an experiment also has the advantage of limiting exposure. Of course, the mathematical odds against winning a lottery are so great, that a lottery is an extremely poor, even stupid investment. The only way it can be considered, in my view, is as a divination experiment, and for that purpose, only one ticket is required, not many. If a single purchase fails to win, then it follows that the experiment failed, end of story.