On Friday, May 8th 2009 a lottery player in Spain won a record 126 million euros which is £112 million GB pounds or $170 million US dollars.  Lottery organizers 'EuroMillions'  have said that it is the largest ever European jackpot for a single ticket.  

The odds of winning the massive jackpot were stated to be 76 million to 1, as the jackpot had rolled over from the past 6 weekly draws.

Anna Maria Rincon the owner of a lottery station in Madrid, Spain called the 'Black Cat Lottery Kiosk' where the lucky ticket was vended said that business had been brisk all week as lottery ticket buyers saw the jackpot rising over the previous weeks.

At this time nobody knows who the lucky winner is, or what their nationality is, it could be anyone at all from a tourist, a visitor from outside of Madrid or someone from Madrid who either hasn't realized that their are a winner or who is just waiting to claim.

The winning numbers for the lucky winner were 4 - 23 - 24 - 29 - 31 with the lucky stars 9 and 8.  The total amount won was 126,231,764 Euros.

Another big lottery winner was a housewife by the name of Dolores McNamara from Limerick in Southern Ireland who won the fantastic sum of 115 million Euros in 2005.

I wonder what it must feel like to realize that you are an instant multi-millionaire and that you will never have to work again and that you can now buy anything in the world and perhaps even persuade a new partner to be friendly with you.

Of course along with the good side there is always the bad side...

...You would have to get advice from financial experts on how to best cope with such a sum.  Also you would need to be advised on the best security measures to live by as you would become a target for confidence tricksters, kidnappers and extortionists the world over.

It would be best to remain as anonymous as possible but newspapers often offer big rewards to anyone for information about a big lottery winner that they know of and this always gets results.

All of your relations, even the ones that you have never seen for years and those you didn't even know you had would be contacting you and coming around to see you, friends would all expect a generous handout.  Begging letters would inundate you as the postal service would be bringing them around by the sack full.

You would of course move address straight away or best to emigrate.  I myself would go and live with all the other millionaires in places like Beverly Hill's in LA or maybe the fast growing country of Dubai.

Everyone would be very nice to you all of the time expecting a free handout, many will despise you if you don't give money or will just despise you anyway.  Some big lottery winners have had big fallouts with their loved ones over greed and expectation of how much of their lovely winnings should be divvied up and to who.

Some non-astute lottery winners have ridiculously stated that their big win would not change their life and that they will continue going about their lives as they did before.  This is until they realize that they cannot talk to their friends as they once did because money or rather the lack of it is the focal point of most conversations.

  So inevitably the big lottery win does change their life, it has to by default after all, isn't that the idea of winning in the first place.  So unless they are prepared to pay people to remain as friends (as this is what it is tantamount to ) then the big lottery winner have to move on.

Anyway, Ferrari's are better suited to the picturesque long winding roads of the Italian alps or the bright and breezy streets of the Riviera in the South of France.

I for one am quite prepared to let my life be changed by a big lottery win...please !