CNN.com - Claim filed against Maine couple holding winning Powerball ticket - August 30, 2001

The lawsuit is being filed by co-workers of the winners, who claim that the winning ticket was part of a group of tickets bought in an office pool.

At my job, I'm in a little office pool of seven people that buys a lottery ticket once a week. All of these people are my friends. If I happened to buy a ticket on my own and won the big jackpot, even though the ticket wasn't the group-bought ticket, I would still share the jackpot. You know why?

Because friends are more important than money. And if you win a jackpot of several million dollars, how is your life going to become better if you keep all the money but lose your friends? The story linked above is an excellent example: this Powerball-winning couple's share was $41 million. The office pool they belonged to had 18 other people in it. I think this couple should have decided to share it anyway - they'd still have over 2 million bucks, and what the hell are you going to do with 41 million that you can't do with 2 million? Especially at the expense of losing friends over it?