Gambling: Part 2
By Bobbi Mlynar
Originally published 01:02 p.m., February 5, 2008
Updated 01:02 p.m., February 5, 2008
Peggy McConnell and the Lottery will celebrate their 10th anniversary this year, and she couldn’t be happier about it.
“It certainly made my life easier,” she said of the win that brings her $1,000 a week for life.
McConnell, who moved her family to Emporia in 1996, was a single mother, working on a graduate degree at Emporia State University, and living on $1,000 a month when she picked her four lucky numbers for a multi-state “Cash for Life” Lottery promotion. Two of her children already were living on their own and two, a fifth-grader and a seventh-grader, lived at home.
“I was the first winner, and it was a multi-state lottery, and they made a big deal out of it, which it was a big deal to me,” she said. “It was a wonderful turnaround.”
After the win, she finished her graduate degree, worked as a school psychologist for five years at Ottawa, then moved back to Emporia, where her Lottery luck began.
“It really has afforded me the opportunity to do things that I couldn’t do before,” she said. “We can actually go on vacation. We live in a nice house. We can buy clothes. We can buy food when we need it.”
The money enabled her to buy her own home and to bring in more children to care for. She is in the process of adopting two children who have lived with her for several years, and the weekly check allows her to stay home to be available for a special needs child who also lives with her.
McConnell had been purchasing lottery tickets at Dillons East, with the dream of winning something.
“Really, there are people that are going to spend money that they shouldn’t spend on lottery tickets and you know, I probably was one,” she said. “But, you know, I justified buying lottery tickets by using coupons” to shop for groceries and other needs.
McConnell said she believes people need to be able to hold on to the hope that something good may happen.
“I really believe it’s OK to spend a little on lottery, even if you’re poor. A dollar or two a week isn’t going to make that much difference,” she said. “People that want to buy a ticket, that have a dream, how are they going to realize that dream if they don’t have the opportunity? I don’t know.
“I don’t speak for anybody but myself, I just know that I am really glad that I had that opportunity.”
When McConnell’s opportunity paid off, she still needed time to adjust to her good fortune, even after the weekly checks — with income taxes withheld — began to arrive.
“At first, I was real worried, like, ‘What if it doesn’t come this week?’ but it always showed up,” she said.
The weekly for-life payoff perfectly suited her needs, she said. No one asked her to lend them money and, since the payments were set for life, she did not have to contend with some of the financial hazards that lump-sum, big-money winners seem to struggle with.
“If I had received the lump sum, I might have been in the same boat a lot of people are,” she said. “I honestly cannot tell you one negative thing that’s come about because of that. It has just changed my life for the better. When you don’t have to worry about paying bills, it surely takes a lot of stress away.”
The money also has given her the freedom to spend money on her children and her grandson, who lives in Colorado.
“It’s been really liberating,” she said. “It’s fun. ... I try really hard not to go crazy” with gift-buying. It helps compensate for the time when she couldn’t afford to do it.
Now, almost 10 years later, McConnell buys Lottery tickets only occasionally; she already has walked away with a nice nest egg for the rest of her life and she intends to make the most of it.
“I plan to live until I’m 100,” she said.