WHOLE LOTTO LOVE
Winning the lottery can be a curse. It hasn’t turned out that way for Jason Rinaldi, who won $35 million and found the path to happiness was paved with generosity
Beyond a stone and iron electric gate, up a long treed driveway and past immaculate landscaping, Jason Rinaldi ansswers the front door of his 7,800-square- foot f home in rural Durham Region dressed in a plain white T-shirt and faded blue jeans, a welcoming smile on his neatly bearded face.
It has been 10 years since Rinaldi, 38, made headlines when he became one of
the biggest single lottery winners in Canadian history.
In October 2008, he went from being a 28-year-old hot rod nut with a small business to having $35.3 million, tax
free, in his bank account, courtesy of a Lotto 6/49 jackpot.
There is an undeniable global fascination with lotto winners who hit it large, aand what comes after for them. Type “lottery winners who ...” into Google and it spits back “went broke ... lost it all ... are still rich ... blew it all ... died.” Try searching Google Scholar, and you’ll find no shortage of academic studies examining everything from whether living next door to a winner bankrupts neighbours wwho try to keep up with the newly wealthy w Joneses, to whether winning makes people inegalitarian. On the latter, Rinaldi did not turn out
that way. Not at all. Thanks to good friends, good advice, good investments, he grew his money, aand gives significant chunks of it toachar- ities. His most recent gift of $500,000 to RRyerson University’s RamsRCare camp program will mean morewskids from priority neighbourhoods will be able to experience university life and mentoring from athletes at the newly named Rinaldi FamilyaKids-to-Camp program.
“There’s nothing cooler than seeing a young kid having fun,” Rinaldi says at one point over the course of a rainy couple of hours inside his beautifully finished home and adjacent hot rod car shop.
Giving, he says, is one of the things that has brought him happiness along a 10-year journey to find out what makes him happy — one that began with that windfall moment, which has not turned out nearly as well for others who win large.
Here is how he did it.
So, a single, 28-year-old car nut hits the jackpot and says he’ll buy a brand new 2009 Corvette and hit Las Vegas. His mom jokes to reporters that any woman coming his way will have to make it by the “pit crew” — the women in the family. Yes, he would keep on going to work, he says.
The cynical might have already been taking out mental bets back in October 2008 that Jason Rinaldi would screw it up — some people just love seeing others fail.
First came the weirdness and brief fame of winning $35 million, Rinaldi, sitting at his kitchen table, explains. It wasn’t good, he says, his bare arms showing off elaborate full sleeve tattoos, which also cover his torso, a collection he began at 18
People discovered the address of the hot rod shop in Guelph that he co-owned with a partner. They learned the address of a condo he owned in the same city. And “love letters” or “fan mail,” as Rinaldi calls them, started coming in.
“They would send pictures of their family and a write-up of why they needed money and why I should give it to them,” he says. “That was the most uncomfortable thing, because you didn’t know if it was a real thing, and you don’t know if it’s a scam.” And then people started showing up at his condo.
“Asking for stuff — it’s not the worst thing to ask for help — but that just freaked me right out. I felt more in danger,” he says. “That’s why I never went back.”
Rinaldi cut ties with his business partner, put his love of cars on hold, sold his condo “right away” and retreated to a place where he could feel safe. He went home to Whitby, to his family.
He could talk and “chit chat” with his dad, Frank, who also shared the love for cars. Rinaldi had started racing cars at the age of 16 and, eventually, he and his dad, a machinist, realized they could save money by learning how to maintain cars on their own. Rinaldi studied to be a tradesman at Durham College, and figured he’d become a mechanic.
Rinaldi did buy that dream Corvette soon after the win, but Vegas never happened. He started hunting for a home with room for a car shop.
Two months after the win, he closed a deal on the house and 18 acres he still owns today. He later added an adjoining 8-acre property that had a house and homemade indoor hockey arena. Smaller than regulation, it nonetheless made for a perfect hot rod shop, which is where today he and a couple of buddies operate Vintage Steel & Metal. His mom and one of his sisters lives in the house.
Rinaldi lost his most trusted adviser in 2011, when his dad died.
But in all things money, he had sought excellent help from financial advisers and had an accountant. He went from having a bank account, to having major investments. As it turned out, 2008 — when the markets crashed — proved to be an excellent time to come into big money. High-yield government bonds were part of it. He prefers low risk, and the highest risk he says he’s undertaken is real estate.
“I don’t do anything crazy,” he says.
But, yes, there was a lot of partying early on. He was 28 at the beginning, basically “retired” and trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next.
Rinaldi’s home was partially finished when he bought it, and he went about creating the ultimate basement party space. It features a bar worthy of a British pub, complete with draught beer lines. The bar walks out to a swimming pool, basketball court and a coach house. There is a movie theatre with large curved screen and seating for 10, a wine cellar with room for 1,400 bottles, a games room with a billiard table and card table, and an arcade with pinball and video games.
Rather than Vegas, Rinaldi made trips with friends to the Caribbean. The Cayman Islands, where a friend was studying law, became a favourite. He’d take his mom along on some of the trips.
Asports fan, he bought season tickets to the Raptors, and with all the time he was spending in Toronto to see the team play, purchased a home in High Park with a cousin. He’s since given up the seats and sold the house early this year.
All the while, he was mindful of the experiences of other winners or athletes who went wild, or made poor investments in things like restaurants or bars with friends. He says he did a bit of that, but recalls thinking, “I don’t want to be a statistic. No way, I can’t be one of those.”
He was skeptical of casual advice thrown his way. He was also careful about who he brought around to the house. He has two German Shepherds — Feli and Rex — who guard the property but are also beloved pets.
“It was a weird feeling of this new-found fame, and money,” he says. “We went to my friend’s bar and people were coming up to me asking to take pictures and stuff, and it was like, why? What are you going to do with this picture?”
Thankfully, the “fame” didn’t last. “It was like five minutes,” he says.
Fairly early on, his financial advisers schooled him on charities.
“It was one of those things I learned kind of quick. Now I have an obligation, when you have more money, there is that obligation of taking care of others, by your choice,” he says.
He began with a charity golf tournament for a friend who had died of cancer, becoming the signature sponsor. The tournament was put on by James Barnett, who had known Rinaldi through friends of friends, but today know each other well.
Barnett worked as a fundraiser at Lakeridge Health in Durham, and Rinaldi, through Barnett, supported the hospital as well. After Rinaldi’s dad died, and Barnett had moved on to University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Rinaldi made a donation there that resulted in an engineering room being named for his dad. When Barnett moved on to a new job at Ryerson University, he reached out to Rinaldi when sponsorship money was coming in short for a national women’s volleyball tournament two years ago. “We were stuck,” says Barnett, and Rinaldi came through.
And then, the $500,000 gift to the Rams Care program.
When Rinaldi visited and saw the camp in action, he saw firsthand the good that money can do. “You hear about young children not having the opportuni- ty to do stuff, but when you see it yourself (and they have the opportunity) it’s like, oh, wow,” says Rinaldi, who hopes his gift will encourage others to give.
Says Barnett of Rinaldi: “Over the course of the last 10 years, I think he’s just made it a part of his life to give back to the community. He knows that he’s very fortunate in winning the lottery and I think he’s done well in terms of investments and I think he feels very fortunate there also.
“He’s all tatted up, so he looks like a unique character, but he’s the friendliest guy in the world, heart of gold.”
Gradually, Rinaldi’s interest in cars came back and he became focused on the vintage hot rod business that’s now in the former indoor rink. On the recent visit, he showed off a couple of the cars and trucks he and his colleagues are working on, as well as one they are not: a 1967 Corvette (he’ll take one of those over a Lamborghini, any day). He still has the 2009 Corvette.
The partying has died down. These days, the basement is mostly quiet, and the occasional party has moved to a cottage in Haliburton. He took up martial arts (Muay Thai) several years ago and has a training regimen that includes visits to a friend’s gym (he has a fully equipped one at home, but prefers not to work out there) and regularly runs and cycles.
“I feel the best I’ve ever felt, mentally and physically. I don’t look the best, but I’m still working on that part,” he says, laughing.
Asked if there is a partner in his life, he smiles and says he is “not married,” and then deftly shifts the conversation to advice he had gotten about finances .
He’s started travelling abroad with buddies, beyond the early island hopping adventures. With each trip — he’s been to Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy and to Thailand to see a friend fight in a Muay Thai competition — he likes to add a tattoo to his body. In Italy, he had “the beautiful life” — in Italian, inked on an index finger.
Asked to share any wisdom he’s picked up, owed to having so much money, he is quick to point out that having the money “doesn’t mean s--t. You just have to find your happy spot. I’m getting close to it now.
“It’s taken so long to figure out what makes me happy. I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely happy. I don’t know if anyone can ever really say that. But finally, now, it’s taken 10 years.”
Another piece of wisdom: Don’t flaunt your wealth, and he doesn’t. “No one likes a douchebag,” he laughs. “Just try to be kind, that’s all now. I think that should be everyone’s motto.”
'When you have more money, there is an obligation of taking care of others.” JASON RINALDI