What would you do if you won $47 Million?

[prohornblower]

Also, everyone who feels the need to pay their family members a proportionally in terms of how much they took home, let me pose this question:

If you WEREN"T in the media, and nobody (including your family) knew that you won the lottery or more specifically how much you won, would you be truthful and honest about how much you won? Would you still be so generous with your money? Or ONLY if you are plastered all over TV?

I'm willing to bet that 90% of you would lie through your teeth to your family. Only when plastered all over the media would you suddenly be so generous.

In other words, say your family thinks you won $13MM when you actually won $26MM or $47MM. Would you still be giving them as much money as you claim you would in this thread (thinking you won $47MM)? I would almost guarantee that none of you would. You'd lie about it, which would lead to further problems down the road.

The best method is to lay out simple guidelines from the get-go, and give everyone the same amount of $$$. Don't buy one person a set of golf clubs and another a plasma. I guarantee you'll hear from your golf buddy that you didn't get him a plasma, and vice versa. Just keep it simple, give out cash to all of them, on the same day, in equal amounts, commensurate with rising inflation.

EDIT: I'm going to bed now. I hope everyone lets this stuff seep in overnight. Tomorrow you'll all be a bit wiser about this. Jumping to conclusions as if you know what it would be like to be in this situation is just stupid. All we can do is speculate.