Can Winning the Lottery Change Your Love Life? A Study Says Yes

Winning the lottery can turn your life upside down in an instant. Suddenly, buying a home, leaving your job, or taking that dream vacation may become possible. But a big financial windfall could also affect something much more personal: your relationships.

A new study of nearly 77,000 Swedish lottery players found that sudden wealth can influence marriage, divorce, and family planning. Interestingly, the effects appeared to differ between men and women.

Researchers discovered that men who won large lottery prizes were more likely to get married and have children. Women, on the other hand, faced a higher chance of divorce during the first few years after winning.

The findings suggest that money can do more than improve someone's lifestyle. It may also change relationship decisions and give people greater freedom to choose the future they want.

Lottery Winnings Can Lead to More Marriages for Men

The study found that unmarried men who won one million Swedish kronor in 2010—equivalent to approximately $138,000 in 2026 purchasing power—were more likely to marry within five years.

Their chances of getting married increased by 4.7 percentage points, representing roughly a 30% increase compared with men who won little or no money.

The effect was especially noticeable among men who had below-average incomes before winning.

However, the researchers did not find a statistically significant increase in marriage rates among women who received similar financial windfalls. They also cautioned that the difference between men's and women's responses was not statistically conclusive.

So, does having more money make someone a more attractive marriage partner? The study suggests that financial security may play a role, but it doesn't provide a complete answer.

Why Did Divorce Rates Rise Among Women?

One of the study's most surprising findings involved married women.

Women who won one million Swedish kronor were nearly twice as likely to divorce within two years. Their estimated divorce probability rose from around 4% to almost 8%.

However, this increase did not last. Researchers found no statistically significant rise in divorce rates ten years after women received larger lottery prizes.

The results were particularly noticeable among women who had lower incomes before winning.

One possible explanation is that some women may have wanted to leave their marriages but lacked the financial resources to do so. A sudden increase in wealth could help cover the cost of separate housing, legal fees, and living independently.

Economist Anastasia Terskaya, a co-author of the study at the University of Barcelona, suggested that the short-lived effect could reflect the financial obstacles women face when leaving a marriage.

Still, the researchers couldn't establish whether the women were already unhappy in their marriages. The findings are consistent with the idea that money can make leaving an unhappy relationship easier, but they don't prove that this was the reason for the divorces.

How Researchers Connected Money With Relationships

Understanding whether money actually changes relationships is difficult. Wealthier people often differ from those with lower incomes in education, career opportunities, social networks, and other important areas of life.

That makes it hard to determine whether money itself causes changes in marriage or divorce.

Lottery winnings offered researchers a way to examine this question more closely.

The team studied three Swedish lotteries, comparing players with similar chances of winning who received different prizes by chance. They then connected the results with government records tracking marriages, divorces, and births for periods of up to ten years.

The study included 76,859 people between the ages of 18 and 44.

The research was conducted by David Cesarini, Erik Lindqvist, Robert Östling, and Anastasia Terskaya and published in the Journal of Human Resources.

Does Winning Money Make Marriages Stronger?

The researchers also found some evidence that lottery winnings could make men's marriages more stable.

However, this result was less convincing than the increase in marriage rates. Much of the effect disappeared when the researchers included older participants or examined separations among unmarried couples.

Other research offers additional clues about the connection between money and romantic relationships.

A separate 2026 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people's preferences for financially secure partners could change depending on their own economic circumstances.

In simulated scenarios, women placed less emphasis on a potential partner's wealth when they had greater economic power themselves.

Unlike the Swedish lottery research, however, that study examined hypothetical preferences rather than actual marriages.

Together, these findings suggest that financial security may influence how people approach relationships, although the effects can depend on individual circumstances.

Can Lottery Winnings Lead to More Children?

The study also examined whether sudden wealth affected family planning.

Although the results showed some changes in reproductive decisions, the overall effect was small.

Receiving one million Swedish kronor increased the expected number of children over the following ten years by just 0.033 children per person across the full sample.

In other words, the financial windfall had a measurable but modest effect on fertility.

This finding is important for policymakers considering whether financial assistance can encourage people to have more children. The study suggests that even substantial payments may produce only limited changes in birth rates.

There's another factor to consider: making one person wealthier isn't necessarily the same as increasing everyone's wealth.

If men's marriage prospects improved partly because their financial position became stronger relative to other people, raising incomes across the entire population might not produce the same results.

Why the Findings May Not Apply Everywhere

Although the study offers valuable insights, its findings should be interpreted carefully.

Sweden has extensive social protections, relatively low barriers to divorce, and comparatively egalitarian gender norms. In countries with different social systems, cultural expectations, or financial pressures, sudden wealth could affect relationships in different ways.

The researchers also couldn't directly measure relationship satisfaction, so they couldn't determine precisely why individual participants married or divorced.

Even with these limitations, the research challenges the idea that romantic relationships depend only on love and compatibility.

For some people, greater financial security may make marriage feel more achievable. For others, it may provide the resources needed to leave a relationship that no longer works for them.

Ultimately, money may not determine whom people love, but it can influence which choices they feel financially able to make.

And that may be the most important takeaway from the research: sudden wealth doesn't just change what people can afford. It can also change how they approach relationships, family life, and their future.