EuroMillions: £154 million, how to spend it all in one week
It's Tuesday night, and you've just won the big one. Here's how to blow it all, big style
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Your support makes all the difference.With a record £154m up for grabs, people across the country are rushing out to buy lottery tickets this weekend, in the hope of hitting the EuroMillions jackpot on Tuesday. The massive cash-pot up is up for grabs after a rollover on Friday, when no one won the £141m draw.
An anonymous winner, who scooped a EuroMillions jackpot of £113m last October, currently tops the National Lottery rich list in the UK.
A spokeswoman for the National Lottery said there was always "a bit of a sales frenzy" when there was a massive jackpot, and urged punters to buy their tickets in good time. If nobody wins Tuesday's jackpot, it will roll over again to Friday's draw. The jackpot can go to a maximum of ¤185m – about £167m.
Here is our fantasy guide to spending your winnings, should you need to splash all your cash in one week.
Day one
Wednesday Spend: £20m
Old Master
Where better to start your spending spree than with a historic work of art? Francesco Guardi’s 18th-century Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s on Wednesday with a guide price of between £15m and £25m.
Remaining: £134m
Day two
Thursday Spend: £16m
Luxury penthouse
You will need somewhere to hang your masterpiece, so snap up this chic 10th floor pad on Park Lane, the most exclusive address in London’s Mayfair. The 316sqm penthouse, on the market with estate agent Foxtons, offers four en suite bedrooms, panoramic views over the capital, three terraces and a private lift.
Remaining: £118m
Day three
Friday Spend: £16m
A slice of paradise
Naturally you will need a tropical bolthole to get away from it all, and a private island in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean offers the ideal r&r. Snap up the 58-acre fishing resort Walker’s Cay in the Bahamas from Vladi Private Islands: it comes with a landing strip and marina.
Remaining: £102m
Day four
Saturday Spend: £68m
Superyacht
Arrive at your Caribbean hideaway in style by copying the likes of Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich and buying a luxury superyacht. The 68-metre Sycara V, up for sale with Edmiston, accommodates 12 guests and 18 crew, and has one master suite and five double cabins. It has a maximum speed of 17 knots.
Remaining: £34m
Day five
Sunday Spend: £1.4m
New wheels
Get behind the wheel of a special edition Bugatti Veyron – the Grand Sport L’Or Blanc. Said to be the first car to have porcelain
fittings, this is the ultimate in supercars. The Grand Sport can reach top speeds of 407kph – handy for escaping new “friends” keen for a slice of your cash.
Remaining: £32.6m
Day six
Monday Spend: £29m
Bling
Diamonds, we are told, are a girl’s best friend, and you can decorate yourself with the finest gems, thanks to your massive
win. As a guideline, British diamond-dealer Laurence Graff paid £29m for a rare 24.78-carat pink diamond in November – aworld record for a jewel bought at auction.
Remaining: £3.6m
Day seven
Tuesday next week Spend: £3.6m
Shop till you drop
One busy week later, you will need some retail therapy and can spend your last millions with the ultimate supermarket sweep (probably more Harrods than Asda). Kit yourself and your family out in luxury brands: £3.6m will buy you 325,203 Gucci “sunset” medium-black crocodile skin tote bags with hand stitching at £11,070 a pop.
Remaining: £0.0
Or you could just give it all away ...
Wealth is so much more elegant when accessorised with generosity. Causes such as WaterAid, providing access to clean water in the poorest countries, could do with a bit of help – £154m is more than three times its annual income. It says 884 million people worldwide do not have safe water; £15 means a person can have a lasting supply and better sanitation – so £154m would help more than 10 million people.
The big spenders who lost it all
Michael Carroll
The “Lotto lout” won £9.7m on the National Lottery in November 2002, aged 19, but the former dustbin man was on the dole last year after blowing his entire fortune on drugs, prostitutes and gambling.
Callie Rogers
The 16-year-old won £2.9m on the National Lottery in 2003 and reportedly splashed her cash on homes, cars, clothes and cocaine. Last year, she said she had just £100,000 left.
Vivian Nicholson
She hit the headlines in 1961 when she won £152,319 (worth about £3m today) on the pools and announced she would “spend, spend, spend”. She did just that, and was later declared bankrupt.
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