I love when people are like "if you get a windfall of money you'll probably go bankrupt. Look at the statistics from lottery winners, 70% of them end up broke."
Ah yes, a subset of the population whose only common traits are that they gamble and make objectively terrible financial decisions. Obviously this group should be the benchmark for the financial literacy and money management of the general population.
True, though let's not act as if the family and friends constantly asking for money or expectating it, old acquaintances suddenly claiming you abused/assaulted/scammed them knowing you'll just settle out of court to get them to fuck off, haven't happened even to fiscally responsible people as well.
There's more than just bad financial literacy with some of them, as not all lottery winners are always broke gamblers. The majority are, but not all. So the fact that almost every single person loses it all in a couple years should indicate that it still has massive potential to make your life harder even if you know what you're doing and don't succumb to massive overspending.
I think I could actually lay low pretty easy. Everything I'd buy people know I've been saving up for for a while. And they all take time to get even if you have the money so it wouldn't be all at once.
Plus my "dream [property/vehicle/hobby items/etc]" are all fairly atainable. Like theres a certain classic vehicle I want that usually goes for 20-30k just the configuration I want is a little difficult to find.
Not all states allow you to collect winnings anonymously. I doubt your relatives are actively monitoring lottery winners, but there may be some sleazy, ambulance chasing lawyers that do and would "preemptively" reach out to family and friends to let them know they're happy to represent them if they "just so happen" to suffer any damages from you.