Winning the lottery doesn't guarantee happiness, but going public about it does guarantee you will lose friends

Dave and Angela Dawes may have made their first mistake by announcing their success at a press conference
Dave and Angela Dawes
Dave and Angela Dawes, who plan to ‘do the right things’ with their winnings Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP

I remember reading once that the chances of winning a jackpot worth $200m in America's multi-state Powerball lottery were so tiny that a person driving 10 miles to buy a ticket would statistically be 16 times more likely to be killed in a car accident. It was therefore a truly astonishing piece of luck that befell Dave and Angela Dawes when they won the top prize of more than £101m in last weekend's EuroMillions lottery draw. Their chances may have been slightly improved by the fact that they live in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, for it is just the sort of place that breeds lottery winners. If there is any justice in the distribution of lottery money, it is that it always seems to go to people in out-of-the-way places. Nevertheless, Dave Dawes, a divorced warehouse supervisor, must have felt as likely to ascend to the throne as to find all the right numbers on his lottery ticket.

The luck of the Dawes will inevitably have unleashed a surge of envy throughout the nation and hopes that it will somehow backfire on them. But while there have been encouraging cases of previous lottery winners ending up bankrupt or killing themselves, contentment is the more usual outcome. Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at Warwick University, has said: "Although many people don't want to hear the evidence, it is overwhelmingly that winning the lottery makes you happier and improves your mental health." It was a conclusion he reached after extensive research. However, there is still hope for people who yearn to engage in schadenfreude.


The Dawes' plan to bestow great riches on "anyone who has helped us through our life" may be well-intentioned, but it will probably anger more people than it pleases. Friends who are left out will feel they have been denied their just deserts. Dave Dawes said at the press conference that they would try to "do the right things" with their colossal fortune. But the "things" they have announced so far don't seem especially "right". Dawes is a Chelsea football fan and wants to replace his one-bedroom flat in Wisbech with a house in Chelsea. This may be conveniently near to the Chelsea ground, but won't he feel rather ill-at-ease among the Russian oligarchs of the Kings Road? He has also said they want to go to Las Vegas, which is almost synonymous with money ill spent.

Well, I hope they are happy. I really do. But it is hardly an original observation to say their wealth is no guarantee that they will be. A new report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development attempts to rank nations by their degree of contentment, and Britain comes surprisingly high on the list. The key factors that make people depressed, it finds, are "being unemployed, in poor health, and having no friends to count on". Winning the lottery prevents none of these misfortunes and it positively favours the last of them.

Bats in my bungalow

To a young person seeking a secure future in these troubled times I would recommend a career as a bat expert. Such is this country's obsession with bats that these experts are in constant demand to carry out surveys of buildings in which the creatures may be lurking. No country building is bought or sold without their involvement. I have just sold a small plot of land in Northamptonshire on which a crumbling 60s bungalow had been rendered uninhabitable by subsidence. But before the bungalow could be demolished to make way for a new house, two bat surveys had to be conducted within the space of a year at a cost of hundreds of pounds.

No actual bats were spotted, but enough droppings were found in the bungalow to suggest it had been visited by a few bats at one time or another. So it was ordered that four bat boxes be erected on nearby trees as substitute homes for the little creatures. Meanwhile, the buyer hastened to complete the purchase before the end of autumn because demolition of the bungalow would not be allowed to proceed during the winter because bats might then be hibernating there. Furthermore, when he eventually comes to erect his new house, the buyer will have to place access tubes in the walls so that bats will be able to fly in and out of it. In other words, he is obliged to invite bats to come and live with him in his new home, however much he may dislike them.

All this cost and inconvenience and bureaucratic meddling is incurred in the name of preserving an endangered species, but one can't help wondering how endangered bats really are when their droppings are almost unfailingly found wherever the bat expert comes to call. It is a very suspicious business.