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Comment by kevin_b_er | Hacker News Reader

If you won, it was $153 million dollars in today's money. That's more than enough money to feed all those mouths.

Actually, the article says his net worth was more than "$10 million (in today’s Canadian dollars)". That's about 7.2 million in today's US dollars. The most any winner got was 2 million CAD (or 1.46 million USD) and the winners each had 9 kids. So that's like getting 162k to have a kid, which isn't that great of a deal.

$7.2 million in today's values is plenty for the Canadian fellow.

Historical inflation = 3% Historical stock market returns=11%

11-3=8

8 percent real return (inflation adjusted) on average per year.

Let's say he plays it a little safe, let's call it 5% real return.

That's $360K/year forever ... and ever.

Sounds pretty easy to me finance wise.

People get raised in big families on a lot less and do just fine.

Only if you never spend any of the capital. I expect having 10 kids there are a number of costs and debts that woukd need to be repaid so the actual interest received would be less.

Which presumably would also get hit with more taxes, lowering it by another 30-40%

Canada doesn't have any inheritance tax. As far as I know, this was the case at the time in question, too.

No, it was $10 million in today's dollars (it's in the article), although your point still stands. Still, being able to pay for, and being able to raise about 10 kids under 10 at the same time is not the same.

From the article:

"In addition to his work as a lawyer, Millar amassed a net worth of more than $10 million (in today’s Canadian dollars)..."

Each winner received $125,000, which is a little over $2 million in today's Canadian dollars.

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