Teenager Gives Lottery Win to Parents

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An American teenager who won $500,000 on a lottery scratchcard has decided to give almost all of it to his parents. The winner, who has elected to remain anonymous, is known to be 19-years-old and a resident of Ingham County in the state of Michigan. He spent $10 on his scratch ticket, and now he plans to invest $5,000 of the $500,000 win for himself, and give the remaining $495,000 to his parents.

The young winner said that his parents had done a great deal for himself and his sister, and so he wanted to give them the money to help take a weight off their shoulders. It is a massive gesture of generosity, and it has rightly made headlines worldwide because of that, but the Michigan teenager is just one of many lottery winners who have used their success to act in various altruistic ways.

Consider Colin and Christine Weir, for example. The Scottish couple, who won a EuroMillions jackpot worth over £161 million in July 2011, have been using their fortune for altruistic purposes from the outset. They set up the Weir Charitable Trust in 2013 with £5 million to help various good causes in Scotland, and the trust has given financial awards to dozens of worthy projects since then. The Weirs have also given millions in donations to various causes quite apart from the awards issued by the trust.

Another EuroMillions jackpot winner who won big and gave away a huge percentage of her fortune was Margaret Loughrey of Northern Ireland. Margaret won £27 million in December 2013 and made a conscious decision to give away £26 million of that sum, for the simple reason that she had been living on state benefits at the time of the win and, by her own admission, she wouldn’t miss what she’d never had.

Of course, it isn’t just jackpot winners who choose to be altruistic when their numbers come up. Just last month, Charles Leighton, an 83-year-old Blackburn man who won £7,250 by participating in a hospice lottery, said that he would buy himself a new overcoat and give the rest to various charities that he cared about.

We could continue talking about the generosity of lottery winners for weeks, because there are literally thousands of cases where those who have won cash prizes have shared part or all of their windfalls with others, but there really is no need to do that. As the recent decision made by the teenage scratchcard winner in Michigan demonstrates, landing a lottery jackpot can be something that transforms not only the lives of the winners themselves, but those around them.

Those of you who would like to indulge in some serious altruism of your own will be pleased to hear that the EuroMillions and Lotto games coming up this Friday and Saturday will boast jackpots of around £32 million and £3.5 million respectively. A percentage of all money raised through ticket sales automatically goes to Good Causes, so your participating will be helping others regardless of whether or not you land a jackpot. Good luck with your numbers, and be sure to let us know if you win big!