Winners of big cash prizes get no discernible health boost as a result – even long-term financial security isn’t a cert, say economists (Image: Frederic Sierakowski/Rex Features)

Ever daydreamed about winning the lottery? You probably imagined a life of financial comfort and good health. But research suggests that such fantasies are often just that.

Real lottery winners are not guaranteed either better health or even long-term financial security, say the economists behind two new studies. And amongst UK lottery winners, the problem seems to originate in the pub.

Andrew Clark and Bénédicte Apouey of the Paris School of Economics analysed the British Household Panel Survey, which includes data on around 8000 people who won the lottery between 1994 and 2005.


They found that those who won more money received a bigger boost to their mental well-being, but overall health did not improve.

That may be because winners smoked and drank more after receiving their prize. “Lottery wins might not be good for your physical health,” says Clark, who is preparing his findings for publication. “You party too much.”

Cash cow

If a win does not help physical health, it might at least be expected to ensure financial well-being. But a study of the Florida lottery suggests this is not always the case.

Scott Hankins of the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and colleagues compared (pdf format) big winners – prizes in the range $50,000 to $150,000 – with those who won less than $10,000.

Bankruptcy rates amongst the big winners were 50% lower than average in the two years after the prize. After that, however, rates jumped up. Averaged over the five years following the prize, roughly 5% of winners in both groups went bankrupt.

It is notable that the prizes were usually greater than the debts that eventually sunk the winners, says Hankins. The average prize was $65,000 – over $10,000 more than the average amount owed by the winners who went bankrupt.

Some economists have used similar results to argue against using one-off payments such as tax rebates to improve people’s well-being. But, of course, many lottery winners do become rich, even if, for some, it’s only temporary.

James Hanley, an epidemiologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, notes that the lives of the rich are unusual and so might not tell us much about the rest of us.

He suggests looking for natural experiments in which ordinary people were gradually given more money – previous examples of which have linked income boosts to improved health.

Journal reference: Journal of the American Medical Association (vol 290, p2023)