Lottery winners are happy after all

Good news!

Winning the lottery will not make you unhappy.

For years, we’ve all heard that winning the lottery will make me unhappy. This made no sense, of course, since everyone likes money, myself included. It’s hard to imagine that being handed a large sum of cash for doing almost nothing wouldn’t make me at least a little bit happier.

But that’s what the research has shown.

Maybe not. It turns out that this assertion has been based entirely upon research done in 1978 in which just 22 lottery winners were interviewed. A new paper argues that the sample size in 1978 was too low and therefore could not accurately register a difference in happiness amongst the participants. The newest study has data from 617 lottery winners, and it found, like we’ve all known in our hearts, that winning the lottery will likely make you a happier person.

Thank goodness. I like it when the world makes sense.

That said, I’ve still never bought a lottery ticket of any kind in my life because the lottery is for suckers. I’ll place my bets on Microsoft, Starbucks, Visa, Disney, and the rest of my investments. The money earned from those be ts also make me happy and offer far better odds.