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Abstract
Based on a 2005 survey among Swedish lottery winners, the article throws new light on what those receiving a sudden windfall do with their existing jobs. Many may continue to work as before the winning, but others may alter their work situation in one way or another. We focus on three possible changes: (i) quitting the job; (ii) going on unpaid full-time leave; and (iii) shortening one's working hours. In our study less than 12% quit working, approximately 24% took unpaid full-time leave, 16% reduced their working hours, but 62% did not make any of these changes. In other words, our results suggest that large windfalls do not generally undermine lottery winners' willingness to get an income from work. However, the size of the winnings had a substantial impact on people's decisions to take unpaid full-time leave and to reduce working hours.
Keywords: change in work situation, gambling, leisure, lottery winnings, work
Gambling may result in coming into possession of sudden wealth, which through a variety of ways can precipitate changes in the gambler's Ufe situation. Prize winners thus become able to afford doing things they have long wished for, such as buying a house or a car, going on long vacation trips, paying off loans, or supporting children and grandchildren. Alternatively, the winners may cut back on the time they spend in paid jobs - or even leave them altogether - as the need for income from employment becomes significantly reduced.
In surveys into work attitudes, questions about whether respondents would continue working even if they won or inherited a large sum of money are common. An obvious disadvantage with such a hypothetical approach is that the answers given tell nothing directly about the actual behaviors in these events. Research on what people in fact ended up doing is therefore of greater interest, even if such is not widely available as yet. In this article, our aim is to examine whether lottery winners make use of the opportunity to reduce their work effort. Building on a survey of lottery winners conducted in Sweden in 2005, we present new data contributing to systematic, empirically grounded knowledge on the subject. The first question we pose is whether winners indeed stopped working or not....