Keep it a secret.

Keep a million for fun, everything else, buy a very conservative and diversified portfolio, borrow against it and purchase real estate worldwide in places with water access and least affected by climate change. With profits start funding antifa, anarcho-syndicalist, ecosocialist, and similar movements.

I would come back here and give 1 mil to everyone who upvote me and 2 mil for op

Keep playing to get more rich.

Most professional gamblers quit just before a big victory. I won’t make that mistake.

I’ll tell ya what I’d do, man. Two chicks at the same time, man.

Not tell anyone and just quietly retire. Spend as much time as possible with my kids as they grow.

Talk to a major law firm about accepting the prize as anonymously as possible. Take the lump sum -payment to the lawyer team and divide it into thirds. One third goes into a trust that I can direct friends and family to with instructions to offer assistance for major life events, weddings, funerals, education and the like. That way I never have to be the bad guy who says yeah, no.

The second third will get invested into low risk bonds so I have a stable income forever

The final third will become what people normally do with lottery winnings, new home, that kind of stuff

-slides loaded briefcase across table-

I would like one (1) healthcare, please.

Among other things, I’d keep going to work. I enjoy my job. What I’ll really enjoy is every time someone tries to pawn off something on me that’s not actually my job I’ll tell them, “not my job”

Cut my hours back at work, maybe take a sabbatical spend much more time with my kids, and go to art school. I’m pretty good at it, but it wasn’t in the trailer park cards.

I would buy Reddit and convert it into a Lemmy instance.

Well now that I have “fuck you” money there’s a few things on my mind.

First, I’m going to eat at a lot of restaurants. I’m going to enjoy my meals too. Through the whole meal I’m going to be buying iced milks for another random patron. I’m going to make sure the waiter is aware that this good gesture needs to be anonymous and I will make sure that as long as the waiter keeps delivering the iced milks I will keep adding $1000 onto their tip. These iced milks will not stop coming until there is nowhere left for the patron to reasonably sit. This waiter will not have to work for a long time afterwards.

Second, I’m going to buy a shit ton of gold bricks. Like the big one’s you envision are in Fort Knox, also known as “Good Delivery” bars. I’m also going to hire an elite team of private security forces whose sole job will be to transport that gold in plain sight everywhere that I happen to go. If by chance my gold is not allowed with me into an establishment, then I will just attempt to buy the place right there on the spot. If that doesn’t work, then my team will take the gold and wait with it on public property.

Pretty sure that $1b is long gone by now, but finally I’m going to be throwing parades—a lot of parades. I will have permits for parades on the streets in front of the houses of all my enemies. These will take place at the most inconvenient possible times that my team of schedulers, planners, and event organizers will be able to find. I will have the dumbest fucking floats in these parades and the shittiest marching bands. I will not stop until I’m sufficient conviced I have broken the spirit of my enemies.

This is why they won’t give me money.

I’d keep it a secret except from the closest people to me. I’d be incredibly boring about what I’d do with it.

First I would pay off my mortgage and invest a chunk in “safe” investments - so shares in utility companies, funeral business - boring reliable investments - and property and land, across borders. All to try and guarentee I would stay financially secure long term for the rest of my life, and weather financial storms.

I’d help my immediate family financially (siblings and parents, and closest friends) but would not go over board - I’d make their lives better but not ruin them, and would aim to keep most of the money ready to keep helping for years to come rather than splurge out. And I wouldn’t tell them how much I had so as not to ruin relationships.

For what I do for me I would think very hard. I’d probably not quit work immediately and I’d try not to ruin my life.

I’d probably look to travel but in bursts - either nice holidays and keep working (I like my job) or quit work and live 3 months at a time in places I’ve always wanted to be for a bit before settling down again.

Anything I do or buy I would do as someone “middle class”. So I’d travel economy plus, I’d stay in decent hotal but not the most flashy, I’d buy a decent home but not a mansion (I don’t need a 10 bed home, I’d just get a nicer version of what I have now - 3 beds but maybe detached and in a nicer area).

Basically I’d upgrade my life a little but I wouldn’t go wild. I don’t see the value in the conspicuously wealthy lifestyle - I’d see money as buying freedom but I wouldn’t want to be wasteful, and I wouldn’t want to be a target for criminals or leeches.

And the rest i’d start puting to good causes. That would probably be conservation charities, green charities, social projects I believe in. Id want to use it to create some kind of legacy even if anonymous - for me that would be something that meaningfully improved the world in some small but realistic way.

Basically I’d be very boring, stay anonymous and try and make relatively small but meaningful changes to my life and those I love.

I would honestly just disappear.

If I had enough money that I can just go “fuck you”, that’s what I’d do. I’d obviously help my family financially, but probably not as a lump sum except to help them buy property to make houses on. But beyond that, I would basically be away and uncontactable. No one would know where I am and what I’m up to except maybe a couple times a year.

The bigger question is actually what type of charity I’d end up doing. I have some distrust for charities, so I’d want to take a more direct approach, so in all likelihood, I’d be helping a number of small creators I believed in to see if they could get a chance at establishing themselves better.

If I won the lottery, I would start by ending the homeless problem in my state. All it would take would be one stroke of the pen and many people’s lives would be improved.