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The second book by syndicated columnist and Huffington Post contributor Don McNay touches on two central themes. Lottery winners and McNay's perspective on life as the son of a bookmaker and professional gambler.
McNay is a structured settlement consultant who has advised lottery winners and injury victims for over 27 years. He gives step by step advice for those who win a lottery and stories about jackpot winners who "wished they have torn up the ticket."
McNay is one the world's most frequently quoted experts about lottery winners. A native of Northern Kentucky, McNay grew up in an environment where gambling was wide open in the Cincinnati suburbs of Newport and Covington and his father was a major participant. McNay has two Masters Degrees from Vanderbilt University and the American College and is the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni. He has four professional financial designations and a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table.
Located in Richmond Kentucky, McNay founded McNay Settlement Group in 1983 and held national office in the structured settlement industry. His newspaper column is syndicated and appears on the Huffington Post business page. He is a frequent guest on radio and television programs.
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Don McNay, a financial consultant and award-winning writer, is an expert on managing money and one of the world's leading authorities on how lottery winners handle their winnings.
His syndicated financial column appears regularly in The Huffington Post and in hundreds of publication worldwide. McNay also has appeared in several hundred television and radio programs, including CBS Morning News, CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, ABC News Radio, BBC News, KPCC- Los Angeles, WLW-AM-Cincinnati, Al Jazeera-English, CBC Television (Canada), CTV (Canada) and Radio Live (New Zealand).
His insight has been sought by hundreds of print publications, including the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Forbes.
Life Lessons from the Lottery: Protecting Your Money in a Scary World is McNay's fourth book. Two previous books, Wealth Without Wall Street and Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery, have been Amazon bestsellers in a number of business and investing related categories.
Since I bought this book because of five star recommendations I feel obligated to warn others who may not enjoy this book for the same reasons I didn't.
The writer takes a shotgun approach and barely skims the surface on any of the dozens of subjects he gets into, to such a degree that it is really quite amazing. I could go into alot more detail and give examples, but instead take the lack of that as a preview. I really liked the writer's tone, but I think this book is more a collection of newspaper columns, all chapters are short and about the same length. I was hoping for some focus and depth.
I kept thinking I was reading a children's book. The typesetting is big and each one or two sentence paragraph is double spaced. This 367 page book would be less than a hundred pages if it used normal type.
The writer considers anyone who would spend a buck on a lottery ticket a dummy and a rube and voices that ad nauseum. I get it, the chances of winning are minuscule, it's never going to happen. In my opinion pondering a windfall is entertainment and $1 is cheap admission.
I think in depth stories of hard luck lottery winners could be very interesting. And I think an in depth look at the best tax and investment strategy for a lottery winner would be interesting. This is not that book.
This book is alot of short little essays on alot of subjects, it is good for what it is. But not at all what I expected.
With so little out there to read, any book about lottery winners and related stories is a potential best seller. McNay, with a candid approach complete with humor and wit, portrays not only lottery winners but the entire business of the lottery in a way that all can follow. His stories about winners like Jack Whittaker, for example, highlight what can (and often does) happen to winners who let their hubris be their guide. Or the now broke celebrity (from his cameo spots on various lottery shows) David Lee Edwards and how he managed to fritter away $27,000,000 in less than 5 years.
McNay goes on to explain how the Big Win overwhelmed most folks, and how they failed to properly handle the money: from investing it to learning to handle those with their hands out wanting a piece of pie. McNay maintains the advice from years of advising not only lottery winners but those who have come into sudden wealth from other means, that the best thing to do is (for lottery winners) take yearly payments, and, of course remain anynomous. He avoids the more fawning, sensationalistic POV's of other 'winners' books. Reading it gives one a solid idea of how to handle a win.
As a regular blogger and columnist, McNay offers some pretty good financial advise, and is an advocate for populist economic measures. He takes the time to hold Wall Street to task for their lack of wisdom and makes valid points about how poorly served Americans are by governmental actions to bolster economics.
McNay, I feel, needs to do a follow-up book which tackles how the lotteries are run, from the poor payouts (less than 50%) to the requirement for nearly all winners to publicly announce their win.... The recent jumbo lottery prize is a case in point, when over $1,500,000,000 was bet and only $600,000,000 or so ending up as the actual prize. That's a rotten payout. Most wagers, such a para-mutual betting, pay out nearly 94%. If that had applied to the jumbo prize, the pay out would have been $1,400,000,000. He also needs to spend some time going into the reasons behind why winners have no choice to remain anynomous. Only 4 states at this time let winners do that. Reasons for having no choice seem to center around bogus state rules designed to get as much PR out of a win as possible, while doing nothing for winners. McNay could bring much of this to light, and, I'm sure, entertain us in the process.
Great book, highly recommend it to all.Read more ›
This book gives me second thoughts about pulling out another dollar for lotto. I'm glad I was the reader and not the subject. It allowed me to laugh and shake my head at the tragic results of folks who were overwhelmed by sudden "fortune", only to lose it all and more soon after. The book is an easy read, and McNay is willing to reveal his own personal stories of growing up in the gambling trade.
An interesting look at the dark side of winning the lottery and how to avoid it. McNay manages to sprinkle humor on the usually hard issues loss, addiction and yes even personal finance. Overall down to earth and utterly charming.
Doesn't take long to read this book. The information is well-written but mainly about the lotto and certainly an eye-opener in case you win! I recommend this to those of you who enjoy gambling (especially the lotto).
Don McNay's dad dealt in the world of high finance. So does Don.
Don McNay's dad had lots of "clients." So does Don.
Don McNay's dad told his clients the risks associated with their "investments." So does Don.
Don McNay is a financial planner and award winning syndicated columnist. Don's dad was a bookie.
Don loves to write about his unique childhood. His dad, like his grandpa, made their bones taking illegal bets in the underground casinos and betting parlors of Northern Kentucky. Therefore, it should be no surprise that when he writes his columns about modern day investing, Don reflects on those characters who surrounded him in his youth, looking to his dad for yields not offered by any FDIC insured institution.
In his second book, Son of a Son of a Gambler, Don McNay has compiled his weekly columns which deal with gambling, investing, business and, of course (as is always present with Don's columns) rock and roll.
What I love about this book is that Don is realistic about his nefarious family heritage, not only recognizing it, but reveling in it. No where is this more evident than in my personal favorite column: Business Lessons from the Fake Dry Cleaners, where Don explains the lessons he learned from running a fake dry cleaning business in the front of a store which made its real profit from the back room "family business."
If you enjoy laughing while you learn, read this book.
Just don't read it on a day you're going to the track.
