The celebrity lifestyle is one which people from all corners of the globe aspire to. Good-looking people vacationing on exclusive beaches, tottering into glamorous nightclubs or lounging around on expensive yachts. What’s not to like? Yet for some reason, some of these fortunate individuals are not content with their lot in life and still dream of winning big on the lottery. In fact, some extremely wealthy individuals enjoy playing the lottery despite the fact that even a jackpot win would barely impact on their bank balances.
One such famous lottery player is media mogul Simon Cowell, who you certainly wouldn’t imagine is short of cash. Having made his fortune from blockbuster reality shows like X-Factor and America’s Got Talent he has an estimated net worth of $550 million USD. That hasn’t stopped the multi-millionaire from regularly buying tickets for the UK’s National Lottery where the all-time record jackpot was £22.5 Million ($30M USD). Pro baseball player Matt Kemp is another who felt that his multi-million-dollar wages could use a boost. Despite earning $21 million a year during his peak years after signing a $160 million contract with the LA Dodgers, the outfielder went on Twitter in 2012 to show a picture of him holding dozens of Mega Millions tickets. Sometimes there’s just no such thing as too much money!
Not every celebrity lottery player was motivated purely by personal greed when it came to purchasing lots of lotto tickets. Aussie actor Hugh Jackman bought 500 lottery tickets every week for every cast member on the movie Real Steel when it was being filmed in 2012. They must have been hoping for delays in production to extend their chances of a windfall, but in the end the largest prize won was $1,500. Also in 2012, Queen of Pop Madonna won €120,000 in prizes on the Italian SuperEnaLotto lottery. She donated all of the prize money to a project to construct schools in Malawi. George Clooney bought €1,500 worth of lottery tickets with the plan to send any profits to aid earthquake victims in Haiti. Like Madonna he chose to play the Italian lottery, but unlike her he failed to buy any winning tickets. Paris Hilton was a little less generous when she spent €1,500 on the same lotto back in 2008, as she promised to give just 10% of any proceeds to charity.
With the biggest American and European lotteries offering prizes worth hundreds of millions, we could all afford to be a little generous if we hit the jackpot. Hopefully more celebs will follow the example of George and Madonna and share the wealth if they bag the top prize.