That’s a question many Australian’s will be hoping to answer “yes” during Melbourne Cup.

With the Melbourne Cup, OZ lotto jackpotting to $25million and a hefty $50 million up for grabs in in Thursday night’s Powerball it can be a week for the punters.

And while we can daydream about the huge difference a major windfall would make to our lives the unfortunate fact is, as research cited by The National Endowment for Financial Education suggests, is that approximately 70 percent of people who suddenly receive a large sum of money will lose it within a few years.

What is even more interesting is that many Australians have a strange relationship with investment, seeing it as gambling or risky.

However the best investor in the world, Warren Buffet doesn’t agree. The following is an extract from an article on The Motley Fools website: (http://www.fool.com/investing)

“Gambling taught Buffett a lesson — getting rich wasn’t as hard as it might seem to be. In a speech to MBA students, he revealed one event that changed his perspective forever:

On my honeymoon I travelled out west. When I visited the casino and saw all these smart well-dressed people participating in a game with the odds against them, it was then that I realized I won’t have a problem getting rich!

This may have been a defining moment for Buffett. At the time, he was picking his own stocks, playing “stupid” by buying the cheapest possible companies he could buy. He’d search for companies selling for less than three times their annual earnings and special situations where he could acquire a company for less than the cash it had on hand. He wanted no-brainer investments that would make him rich.

Meanwhile, others were placing money on bets guaranteed to lose. These weren’t stupid people — they had money to blow in Las Vegas, after all — but they weren’t playing to win. They were playing games of chance where they were almost guaranteed to lose.

If smart people spent their time gambling, a smart, young Buffett could very easily get rich spending his time in the stock market.”

Unfortunately for most of being lucky won’t set us up for life. It will come down to working hard, having a goal, having a plan and implementing and reviewing that plan.

This information is general information only. You should consider the appropriateness of this information with regards to your objectives, financial situation and needs.