THINGS NOT TO DO IF YOU WIN THE LOTTERY

So you just won the lottery. And you want to tell everyone, right? Don’t. From 247wallst.com are 12 Things Not To Do If You Win The Lottery:
1. Forget to sign a ticket or report it to the state. Imagine what can happen if someone else snags your ticket and shows up to collect the prize. Fighting over this is no simple task and disputes have arisen over who owns what ticket.
2. Tell everyone you know. If you win this much money, chances are high that you will to want to brag about it. The problem is that telling everyone you know before you collect puts you in danger, and in more ways that just one. Everyone who has ever done anything for you now may come with their hands out asking for something, or worse. If you can manage it, and if your state allows it, try to remain anonymous for as long as humanly possible.
3. Automatically decide to take the up-front cash. Supposedly some 70% of lottery winners end up broke again, many within a couple or few years. Go see a reputable and visible tax professional and a reputable investment advisor at a top money management firm with a widely recognized company name.
4. Think that you are the smartest person to manage your money and finances. Having a solid and respectable team in place will act as your buffer that protects your assets now and in the future.
5. Let your debts remain in place. If you get the “I’m rich and don’t have to pay anymore” bug, you might be dooming yourself. One lottery winner in California was reportedly strapped with debt from property purchases.
6. Become the generous high-roller, living the life. Taking you and your favorite 50 people on a luxury cruise around the world can become very expensive, very fast. Having an entourage generally only works for people who keep making more money.
7. Do not go out and buy dozens of cars, followed by houses and whatever else, for you and your friends and family members. This will start you on a bad path, and you could easily become the next friends and family personal welfare department.
8. Say to hell with a budget. At the end of the day you do still have a finite sum of money. Without setting limits for yourself and for what you do with others is a recipe for disaster. Again, most lottery winners go broke.
9. Become the business backer for all your friends and family. One common theme that has come up with lottery winners who suddenly get vast sums of cash is that their friends and family start pitching them on endless business ideas.
10. Give it all away. Some people might want to give away just about all of their money to a charity or to their religious institution. Imagine what you will feel like down the road when a serious crisis arises in your life or your family’s life, knowing that you no longer had the means to change it. Should you be charitable? Absolutely. Should you give it all away? Absolutely not.
11. Get celebrity and athlete envy. Owning an original Picasso painting sure sounds impressive, but you can go broke real quick. Just ask Nicolas Cage, Wesley Snipes, MC Hammer – people who had it all and ended up broke – how they feel about things.
12. Think that laws and decency standards no longer apply. Living a reckless life without concerns about the laws of the land will not keep you from going to prison (or worse), and you don’t get to take any of your wealth with you.
* Can I at least go to Dairy Queen for some ice cream?
* Number 13, and most important: Don’t eat the money.
* Number 14: If Scientology calls, don’t answer.
* Most lottery winners go broke? Well, that makes me feel a LITTLE better.
* One little request: If you’re going to keep working at your job, please don’t tell us about it.
* Don’t you hate that? When they say, “I’ll probably just keep working at the factory and invest the money”?
* I do think taking only half the money upfront is crazy rather than 25 years of pay-outs. I mean your very first decision is to give half the money back? Dumb.
* This is where the financial genius part kicks in: “Don’t worry, I can take half now and double the money on my own.”
* Oh sure. Ask yourself, if you’re such a financial genius, why did you need to play the lottery in the first place?
* PHONE TOPIC: I won the lottery, and blew the money.