$22 million lottery winner hasn’t told his kids because he doesn’t want them to become freeloaders
Charisa Bossinakis
Featured Image Credit: Flavio Coelho/Getty Images. Jonathan Kitchen/Getty Images
A man who won $22 million in the lottery reveals he’s not telling his kids about the win as he wants them to work hard.
You best believe if I were to win the lottery, I’d be downing caviar and partying on a yacht in the Maldives with Leonardo DiCaprio.
However, one man decided to be more humble with his cash prize.
An anonymous caller phoned into Nashville's The Ramsey Show to reveal he’d won the hefty amount a couple of years ago with 'some co-workers'.
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The lottery winner said he decided to conduct some research following his win, discovering that ‘one in five people lose their lottery winnings or go bankrupt within 10 years'.
Not wanting to be another statistic, the anonymous man revealed that he had only told his wife and one sibling about the money.
“One of the things they all said was, you tell too many people and you get too many people at your door asking for this, that and the other thing, asking for handouts and expecting you to pay for everything,” he said, explaining previous winners’ mistakes.
“So my wife and I made a conscious decision just to kind of keep it under wraps,” adding he hasn’t even told his two teenage children.
“Now I know that sounds strange, but we just don't want them to grow up to be waiters - you know, waiting for us to die. So they can get our money."
He added he '[wanted] them [his children] to go figure out what they want to do in life and get going’ but would disclose his secret to them one day.
The man also revealed that his wife’s great uncle passed away shortly after he won the lottery.
As his wife's great uncle had never married and had no kids, he left his inheritance to his wife and her sibling; adding the inheritance makes for a great ‘cover story’ when they want to help people out.
He said that after he bought his mother a roof, she questioned how he could afford it, insisting it was merely ‘Uncle Bob’s money’.
The lucky prize winner said he and his wife aren’t tempted to splurge, admitting that he’s already paid off his mortgage and owns two Toyotas.
“We're not looking to upgrade to anything because they're perfectly fine cars,” he continued.
He also confessed that he was, in fact, 'still working’ and doesn’t plan to leave anytime soon as he ‘kind of likes his job’.