Large numbers are always extremely hard, if not entirely impossible, to completely wrap your mind around. This holds true for vast time spans of thousands of years (not to mention millions or billions of years). It hold true for large populations of countries or membership counts of organisations. And it most definitely holds true for large numbers in the size of a EuroMillions jackpot win – at its lowest €15 million, at its higher levels ten times as high.
We hear “fifteen million euros”, but how much is it really, as compared to a salary, the cost of a house, or for that matter compared to another lottery win, like the five numbers and one star win in EuroMillions? One popular way to start wrapping your head around it is to compare it to a normal salary. The mean annual income for a Great Britain citizen is around £25 000 / €30 000. If we compare this to a regular EuroMillions jackpot win, without any rollovers, that is the mean income times 500 – in other words earning a normal salary for five hundred years in a row, without having to work.
That truly puts some things into a perspective – in short, if you win a EuroMillions jackpot you can quit your job and keep the same lifestyle for the rest of your life, even if you’re lucky enough to live for several hundred more years.
The Extravagant EuroMillions Lifestyle
That said, I know exactly what you’re thinking – what sane person wins big at the lottery and keeps to the same lifestyle? What if I want to advance my lifestyle by a few hundred steps, and live the extravagant, expensive life I always dreamed about? What if I want an amazing car, a fantastic villa on the coast of France, and the chance to travel all over the world?
Let’s look at those fifteen million again, and let’s change around some priorities. First of all, quite few people live to see their five hundred birthday, so let’s focus on a hundred years instead – we could even take fifty, but let’s stay positive and assume you’ll live a long life and want to save some money for your kin.
Calculated over a hundred years instead, those €30 000 a year for the rest of your earthly life turns into five times the amount (500/100 = 5), in other words €150 000 a year or €12 500 a month. Now that is what one could call enough for quite a nice life. Throw in the rent or mortgage for quite a living, and you’re still left with €10 000. Throw in the cost of daily, exclusive restaurant visits of €200 a day (which is more than enough for some nice dishes for a bunch of people) and you’re left with €4 000, which still almost twice as much as the mean income per month. Now get a nice car, travel around the world and come home to still afford a thousand euro bottle of champagne.
The Highest EuroMillions Win Imaginable
Keep well in mind that what we’ve gone through so far is the very least you can win on a EuroMillions jackpot. What about the higher numbers? What about €80 million? No – let’s kick it up a notch. What about the highest it can go? What about €190 million?
The quick way of calculating the difference between two sums of money is to just say sum A is X times the size of sum B, but with these numbers that still doesn’t help. €190 is about 13 times the size of €15, but how much is it really?
Let’s put it in another good way of comparison. How much can you get for €190 million? Or the better question, what would you want to get?
I always had the dream of getting a private island. Looking up some prices you can easily get a couple of nice islands to populate. And with a couple, I really mean you could get about twenty of them without causing a massive dent in your budget. You can get a nice private island in the Bahamas for around €5 to €10 million, and still have €180 million left.
To return to our original comparison, that’s €1.8 million a year for a hundred years, or €150 000 a month. Again, the average income is at €30 000 a year or €2 500 a month. For each month you live on the amazingly high EuroMillions jackpot, you live with sixty times the money you would have if you had worked instead of winning the lottery. That’s sixty times the money to spend on a nice house, on food, on cars, on your loved once, on traveling, and – if you’re like me, sixty times more money to spend on private islands!
The Fantastic World of EuroMillions
The fantastic thing about the EuroMillions lottery is the chance to change your life into anything you want. If you want to travel the world, this is your chance. If you want to drink a €1 000 bottle of champagne with every dinner, this is your chance. If you want to settle down on a group of private islands in the Bahamas (I will not be giving up on my islands!), well, this is your chance.
A EuroMillions jackpot win is anything and everything you’ve ever hoped for. It is a chance to be whoever you wish, in whatever environment you dream of, and always being able to live in the spur of the moment and get whatever you want, disregarding its cost and consequences. A chance to never again have to think about money, but always having everything you need for anything you want to do.
All in all, EuroMillions is your chance to live, your chance to be.