As an interesting corollary, it's actually a longitudinally studied and extensively documented fact that winning the lottery does not provide long-term happines

As an interesting corollary, it's actually a longitudinally studied and extensively documented fact that winning the lottery does not provide long-term happiness. More often than not, it actually causes more problems than it solves. I forget the statistic off the top of my head, but some astounding percentage of lottery winners -- let's say 75% -- end up worse off within 5 years of winning than they were before they won. (Granted, a lot of that has to do with the fact that the type of person most likely to be playing the lottery is also the type of person who has no real concept of the value of how to manage a $XXX million fortune, let alone a $XXX million fortune acquired literally overnight).