You Don’t Need A Big Lottery Win For Long Term Happiness But A Few Thousand Helps
Researchers at the University of Warwick and Watson Wyatt have been examining just how much money one needs to win in the lottery to have a long term impact on personal happiness.
Unsurprisingly the researchers found that small wins in tens or hundreds of pound made little long term difference, but they also found one did not need to win the jackpot to gain a significant increase in long-term mental wellbeing.
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. Economist Professor Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick said:
“This delay could be due the short term disruptive effect on one’s live of actually winning, but a more plausible explanation of the delay is that initially many windfall lottery funds are saved and spent later.” Read more.