We’ve all day dreamed about what we would do with the money should we hit that life changing jackpot while playing our favourite online casino game. In these dreams life would be perfect, but often for those who actually do experience big wins whether it be at online casinos or on the lottery, the dream fast becomes a nightmare.

Over and over again we hear of rags to riches and back again betting stories where people squander their winnings in absurd amounts of time and end up right back where they started, or worse off than before the win. This is largely due to the fact that most normal people are not used to handling unusually large amounts of money and when they come into large fortunes end up making bad decisions on how to spend or invest it.

In order to prevent this type of thing from happening to you in the event that you hit a big jackpot, we’ll take a look at a few things that you should consider and plan for even now before you’ve won anything because, after all, you never know when you’re going to get lucky!

The main thing that you should never do once your winnings have been paid out is head straight back into the casino. This is the fastest way to lose a significant portion (if not all) of your winnings. If you do want to continue to gamble, set aside a reasonable portion of your winnings to allocate to your gambling account.

Another common mistake that people make when winning a large sum of money is to go on on-going spending sprees where the price tags of items escalate. While you may not think that you are spending large amounts in comparison to your win, everything adds up more quickly than you think. When you win, it is always good to have a plan as to how funds should be spent. By all means, set aside a portion of your winnings to “blow” on luxury items, but be sure to create a type of budget and allocate portions accordingly.

In order to do this effectively, start thinking about what you would do if you won amounts of $25k, $250k and $2.5 million. Write down how you would allocate funds for each of these three brackets, bearing in mind that you should always take care of any outstanding debts first, before allocating money to fun things like buying cars or going on vacations etc.

Should you win a large sum (in the millions of dollars) you should hire an accountant and/or financial planner to assist you with investing and managing your money properly. If you know that you are not good at handling money, then you may consider setting up a trust wherein you receive a monthly “salary” instead of large sums all at once. This will ensure that you are well looked after for a long time to come.

If at all possible, your jackpot win should be kept confidential, while we all want to believe the best of our friends and family, many winners will tell you how they lost money by investing in the business ideas of their loved ones or lending money to people that they never get back.

While it may seem absurd to have a plan for something that may never happen, it just might and you’ll be better off in the long run if you have a logical plan that can help you to sustain your finances over the long term.