Recently, Some guy won millions on a betting site and [url]24lottos.com[/url] asked people to share their thoughts about what they would do if they won $500m in the lottery sometime ago, the funniest tweets won some cool prizes, including online shopping vouchers and the highly coveted Oculus Rift. There were some interesting and hilarious responses. We decided to do a practical post about what you should do if you won the lottery. Whether it is $500m, $50m or just any large sum of money, the rules are the same.

Keep Calm and get a financial advisor
The first thing you should do is take very deep breaths and calm all the way down. Yes, that is probably easier said than done as you probably just want to go on a shopping spree, club for a whole week and pop bottles. Nobody would blame you if did that but that is one of the quickest ways to lose your loot. Don’t panic and start investing in everything, just take time to process the win. Then get a financial advisor as soon as possible, especially one who deals with high net-worth clients.

Tunji Andrews, a Lagos based economist says

‘I would buy 180 day treasury bills with every single kobo, then build a structure to manage the wealth thereafter. This structure will keep the money regenerating while funding everything I am passionate about. Philanthropy, medical research, financial literacy for Africa. And of course, sort out my family’

Don’t quit your job or do anything drastic
You have that boss from hell and winning the lottery seems as good a chance as any other for you to be finally rid of them, so you want to quit your job. This is not a good time for drastic lifestyle changes as you might be too excited to be rational. A Forbes article suggests that you should wait at least 6 months before making any big changes.

Budget, budget, budget!
Let’s face it, it’s easy to get carried away, you now have more money than you probably dreamed of in a lifetime. You want to throw caution to winds and do that ‘lau lau spending’ especially now that you probably have lots of people lining up to get a piece of the windfall. You need to create a budget that guides you and helps you know where your money is going. You could set aside a fixed amount for spoiling yourself.

Write your will
As that famous statement attributed to a religious leader says ‘Eniyan le ku any f@&%ing time’. Meaning a person could die quite suddenly without notice and it would not matter if you just hit the jackpot. Even if you don’t have two kobo to rub together it’s always advisable to have a will and when you win the lottery, it becomes urgent.

These are few of the things you need to do on the off- chance that you win the lottery, the odds are not great but we never know, Baba God can make it happen.