The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, or so they say. Not always true, depending on the circumstances, but a recent headline about some lottery winners certainly underscores that first part.
On November 2, three money managers from Greenwich, Connecticut—one of the richest cities in America, largely because it is a haven for money management firms—won a $242 million Powerball lottery, off of a single $1 ticket. The winners—Greg Skidmore, Brandon Lacoff and Tim Davidson—all worked for the wealth management firm Belpointe. Their winnings are the largest in Connecticut lottery history, and the 12th largest in Powerball history.
That’s saying something, considering how extremely big Powerball jackpots get from time to time. It seems every so often, one hits critical mass and suddenly the land is gripped with a kind of lottery mania. I just don’t understand it myself, but plenty do, given the size of the state lottery system, which basically accounts as a kind of secondary tax structure (this is a real knee-slapper when you consider that a great deal of whatever you win off of these jackpots gets taxed anyway). The Belpointe Three’s take-home after taxes is about $100 million, or less than half their original winnings.)