You read the numbers, then you check the date on the paper. Then you read the numbers again, and slowly it starts to dawn on you that you’ve won the lottery. How much? A million! To hell with the poker face you always imagined you’d pull in this situation, you’re doing cartwheels around the house. That’ll do nicely. And in your head, you start to plan your new garage with at least one supercar and a few others to tide you over.
But hold your horses there, big spender! You only won a million. Yes, that’s right, we said “only”. Before you get that in the bank, Uncle Sam will take over $300k out of it, so you’ll be lucky to have $650k to play around with.
The fact is while that kind of money should be enough to set you up in a nice house with a pool and maybe that games room with the poker table you always wanted or start a good business, it probably won’t bring you the Mclaren P1 you were just dreaming of. But you already have a house, and you have a pretty good job, you say? Doesn’t matter; if you want to own a supercar, you need to think of more than the sticker price.
Now before you start, we’re sticking to real supercars here. Forget your Acuras and your Nissans, and not a word about your Aston Martins or your Jaguars. We’re thinking more Lamborghinis, McLarens, Ferraris, and Bugattis; the kind of cars you’d imagine poker high rollers drive.
So, let’s go for a Huracan. At $200,000, it’s one of the more “affordable” on our list of supercars with class. And that’s a fair chunk of your change gone right off the bat, but like you said, you’ve got a good job and a house already.
Now you’re going to want to take good care of this beautiful piece of engineering, so first up you’ll need some insurance. Depending on your driving experience, place of residence, and your security measures, this could be anything from $5,000 to $20,000 a year. Ouch.
Then you’ll need to keep it serviced. An oil change alone could set you back $1,000 while the plugs will cost another $1-2k. Tires are another expense that you just can’t avoid, and while they “only” cost about $1,200 for a set, it all adds up.
Gas is about the only thing you don’t have to worry about as you’ll likely only drive the car on the weekends. We can’t really see you rolling up to Walmart in the Huracan when there’s a perfectly good minivan at home. Where would you put the shopping bags for a start?
So, unless you win the super-power-mega-jackpot lottery, chances are you won’t be buying that lime green Lambo. In fact, with the way the economy is going right now, you might even have trouble keeping a Porsche in the garage with only $650k in the bank. Besides, the odds of you winning that super jackpot are pretty slim after all.
If you want to win big, and we mean three Ferraris in the driveway big, you better find yourself another hobby. Something like poker. This year’s World Series of Poker winner Scott Blumstein is a 25-year-old accountant major and he banked $8.5 million. And even better, it was his first live event. Although it should be said that the guy had been grinding away at online poker for a few years and managed to get good enough to qualify for the live tournament.
Yeah, we’re thinking that online poker has never looked more appealing than it does right now. And like you, we’re also wondering what car Blumstein went out and bought with his poker winnings. Hopefully, it was something suitably exotic because otherwise, we’ll be very disappointed. Now that’s a man that can definitely afford a P1 if he wanted it.