Many people say lottery winners become unhappy. This idea comes from a 1978 study of only 22 winners. They were not happier than other people.

But in 2020, a large study in Sweden looked at thousands of winners. Big winners were more satisfied with their lives, even more than ten years later. Their everyday mood did not change much. Remember, though: almost nobody wins the lottery!

Philip Brickman and his colleagues interviewed just 22 lottery winners in Illinois in 1978. The winners were not much happier than ordinary people, and they seemed to enjoy small daily pleasures less. This study is the main source of the popular idea that lottery winners end up unhappy. It also helped spread the idea of hedonic adaptation, which means we get used to both good and bad events.

A 2020 study in Sweden was much larger. It surveyed thousands of winners 5 to 22 years after their wins. Big winners reported clearly higher life satisfaction, and the effect lasted for more than a decade. But their day-to-day happiness and mental health were not clearly different from those of other people.

In 1978, Philip Brickman and colleagues interviewed 22 people in Illinois who had won big lottery prizes, along with ordinary people and accident victims. The winners were not much happier than the comparison group, and they seemed to take less pleasure in everyday activities. The study became a landmark of hedonic adaptation research and a major source of the belief that winners end up miserable.

But with only 22 winners and prizes of very different sizes, it could say little about what winning actually does to people. A far more rigorous test came in 2020, when Erik Lindqvist and colleagues surveyed thousands of Swedish lottery players 5 to 22 years after their wins. Because prizes are assigned by chance, the design works as a natural experiment, separating the effect of the money from differences that existed beforehand, such as wealth.

Large winners reported significantly higher life satisfaction, and the effect lasted for more than a decade. Measures of general happiness and mental health, however, showed no clear difference. Money seems to improve how people evaluate their lives without necessarily lifting their daily mood. Tickets are still a losing bet, since lotteries pay back only part of their sales as prizes.