Since I’ve never bought a lottery ticket … at least not yet … I was interested in this study on lotteries... as a win relates to a person’s happiness! Does your workplace pitch in for weekly picks?
Apparently … you don’t need to hit the big jackpot happiness ... but several thousand helps… What do you think? 
Researchers at the University of Warwick looked at how much lottery money a person needs to win … in order to have a lasting impact on personal happiness. Not surprisingly they researchers found that small lottery wins in tens or hundreds of dollars made little long term difference…. Interesting… they also found a person does not need to win the big jackpot to gain a significant increase in long-term mental wellbeing.
Their work is published in the Journal of Health Economics where you can check out the details of how researchers Andrew Oswald from the University of
They found that two years after their win mid-sized lottery winners scored a mental wellbeing GHQ grade 1.4 points better than previously. Researchers concluded that … two years after their win they were just over 10% happier than the average person without any win … or with a much smaller lottery win.
Intriguingly the researchers also found that this increased happiness is not obvious immediately after the medium-sized win and takes some time to show through.
Did you find yourself wondering … as you read this study … and of the following questions:
1. Were the winners expecting to place their happiness in monetary values?
2. What if they had looked to other … even richer ways to create lasting joy?
3. What would non-lottery buyers like me have scored in terms of happiness?
4. How could previous studies show lotteries do not make people happy over a long term... and now say they do in fact add happiness?
Those were just a few questions I was wondering about…. What an interesting study … when you think of how we train the brain to seek what we see can make a happier … more satisfied life! Intriguing …. What do you think…?
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