Getting Rich the American Way! Lotto Tickets & Insurance Settlements! More than one in five Americans believe the best way to get rich is to win the lottery, while 11 percent say inheriting money is the way to go, a survey showed on Monday.
Asked the most practical way to accumulate "several hundred thousand dollars," 21 percent chose winning the lottery, compared to 55 percent who thought saving something each month for many years was best. Three percent of those surveyed thought a big insurance settlement was the best way to become wealthy. The poor were the most likely to say winning the lottery was the most practical way to gain wealth -- with 38 percent of those earning less than $25,000 a year choosing that option. 16 percent said that
winning the lottery was a very important wealth-building strategy for all Americans,
African Americans and those over the age of 65 were also more likely to believe winning the lottery was more practical than saving each month -- at 30 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
Nearly 1 in 10 households had zero net wealth -- meaning their debt exceeded their assets.
Financial planners believe half of young Americans could accumulate $1 million over a period of 30 years, but fewer than 1 in 10 Americans believe they could save that much money. "Planners know that it is easier for individuals to build personal wealth than they realize," said James Barnash, chair of the Financial Planning Association.
Obviously, a lot of these poor, elderly, and blacks have closely studied hypergeometric distribution, which puts the odds of winning the lottery at a 1 in 80 million to 1 in 146 million, and they have decided those odds look pretty dern good.
Odds of dying from fireworks: 1 in 744,564
Odds of dying from contact with venomous spiders: 1 in 372,498
Odds of dying from contact with hornets, wasps and bees: 1 in 68,981
Odds of dying from being caught between objects: 1 in 32,391