The reason we buy lottery tickets is so that we can stare out of the window and dream about what we would do with all that money.

Every now and again, someone cracks the big time (that $1,5 billion Mega Millions jackpot, and the Goodwood man who raked in a cool R232 million PowerBall win come to mind), and we get to pepper them with questions about what happens next.

Holidays, houses, cars, treats for friends and family – the usual answers pop up, and then there’s the question of whether or not they will carry on working.

For some reason, over and over again right across the globe, these lottery winners feel obliged to say that they’re going to carry on working, and it really pisses me off.

Enter 24-year-old Wisconsin resident Manuel Franco, who came forward yesterday to claim the $768 million (around R11 billion) PowerBall prize. He described the moment he won to the Huffington Post:

…he was sorting through $10 worth of quick-pick tickets after the March 27 drawing and thought he had checked all his tickets.

Then he saw one last ticket stuck to another one, and recounted to reporters the feeling as he matched the first two numbers, then glanced at the PowerBall to see it matched too.

“I was going insane,” Franco said. “I looked back at the three other numbers, they all matched. My heart started racing, my blood started pumping, I felt warm. I started screaming.”

I would completely lose my shit, and this leads me to the bit about carrying on with your work:

Franco declined to reveal much about himself at a news conference conducted by Wisconsin Lottery officials, smiling often but deflecting questions such as what he did for a living and what kind of car he drives. Franco did say he quit work the second day after winning, saying he just couldn’t continue.

YES! FINALLY! Manuel, please, for the sake of the sane, never work another day in your life.

He isn’t taking home the full $768 million – he chose the one-time payout option of $477 million cash, rather than the full amount paid over 29 years, which ends up being around $326 million once state and federal taxes are taken into account.

Manuel, I don’t know you, but I feel like you could make that work. He’s also ready for the deluge of people asking for favours:

Franco said his financial goal before winning the jackpot was getting his bank account to the $1,000 mark. He said he hoped to make some charitable contributions and was prepared for people who might come asking for money.

“I’m ready and I know how to say no,” Franco said. “I’m just going to take off somewhere and, honestly, just take my time with it, think it over, talk to my family and make sure I spent it in the right way.”

Good luck with that, because people can be pretty persistent.

If you’re obliged to dabble, you can play the world’s biggest lotteries here. Just remember who told you about it, OK?

[source:huffpost]