20 lottery winners who lost every penny
Even if it does pan out, winning the lottery will not solve all
of life’s problems. Many people’s lives became notably worse after
they hit the jackpot.
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- The Mega Millions jackpot has reached a record high $868
million after nobody won on Tuesday. - While it may be tempting, buying a lottery ticket is almost
certainly not worth it. - History has shown us countless examples of lottery winners
whose lives took a turn for the worse after hitting the
jackpot.
The Mega Millions jackpot reached a
record-high $868 million after nobody won Tuesday’s drawing.
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The announcement gives hope to lottery players across the
country who dream of striking it rich with a few lucky numbers.
While buying a ticket may seem tempting, the numbers suggest
that it almost certainly isn’t worth it.
But even if it does pan out, winning the lottery will not
solve all of life’s
problems.
In fact, many people’s lives became notably worse after they hit
the jackpot, as you can see from the following cautionary
tales.
Lara and Roger Griffiths bought their dream home … and then
life fell apart.
Before they won a $2.76 million
lottery jackpot in 2005, Lara and Roger Griffiths, of England,
hardly ever argued.
Then they won and bought a million-dollar barn-converted house
and a Porsche, not to mention luxurious trips to Dubai, Monaco, and
New York City.
Their fortune ended in 2010 when a freak
fire gutted their house, which was underinsured, forcing them to
shell out for repairs and seven months of temporary
accommodations.
Shortly after, Roger drove away in the Porsche after Lara
confronted him over emails suggesting that he was interested in
another woman. That ended their 14-year marriage.
Bud Post lost $16.2 million within a nightmarish year — his own
brother put out a hit on him.
play Bud Postlost $16.2 million within a nightmarish year — his own brother put
out a hit on him.
(Flickr / Alex)
William “Bud” Post won $16.2 million in the
Pennsylvania lottery in 1988, but he was $1 million in debt within
a year.
“I wish it never happened,” Post said. “It was totally a
nightmare.”
A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a third of his
winnings, and his brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill
him in the hopes he’d inherit a share of the winnings.
After sinking money into family businesses, Post sank into debt
and spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of a bill
collector.
“I was much happier when I was broke,” he said, according to
The Washington
Post.
Bud lived quietly on $450 a month and food stamps until his
death in 2006.
Martyn and Kay Tott won a $5 million jackpot, but lost the
ticket.
Martyn Tott, 33, and his 24-year-old wife, from the UK, missed
out on a $5 million lottery fortune after losing their ticket.
A seven-week investigation by Camelot Group, the company that
runs the UK’s national lottery, convinced officials their claim to
the winning ticket was legitimate. But since there is a 30-day time
limit on reporting lost tickets, the company was not required to
pay up, and the jackpot became the largest unclaimed amount since
the lottery began in 1994.
“Thinking you’re going to have all that money is really
liberating. Having it taken away has the opposite effect,” Kay Tott
told The Daily Mail.
“It drains the life from you and puts a terrible strain on your
marriage. It was the cruelest torture imaginable.”
Sharon Tirabassi is back in the working class after winning $10
million 11 years ago.
play SharonTirabassi is back in the working class after winning $10 million 11
years ago.
(IBN/screenshot)
In 2004, Sharon Tirabassi, a single mother who had been on
welfare, cashed a check from the
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. for more than $10 million Canadian
dollars.
She spent her winnings on a “big house, fancy cars, designer
clothes, lavish parties, exotic trips, handouts to family, loans to
friends,” and in less than a decade she was back “riding the bus,
working part-time, and living in a rented house.”
“All of that other stuff was fun in the beginning, now it’s
like, back to life,” she told The Hamilton Spectator.
Luckily, Tirabassi put some of her windfall in trusts for her
six children, who can claim the money when they turn 26.
Evelyn Adams gambled it all away in Atlantic City.
Against all odds, in the mid-1980s, Adams won the lottery twice,
once in 1985 and again in 1986.
The New Jersey native won $5.4 million, but AskMen.com reports
that she gambled it
away in Atlantic City.
Adams also told The New York Times in 1993 that the
publicity she received led to a bombardment of requests for
financial assistance.
“I was known,” she said, “and I couldn’t go anywhere without
being recognized.”
Tonda Lynn Dickerson was forced to pay gift tax.
Tonda Lynn Dickerson, a former Waffle House waitress, got served a big
plate of karma when she refused to split her winnings with
colleagues and was forced to pay the taxman $1,119,347.90.
How did it happen? Dickerson placed her winnings in a
corporation and granted her family 51% of the stock, qualifying her
for the tax.
Gerald Muswagon ended up feeling sorry for partying.
In 1998, Gerald Muswagon won the $10
million Super 7 jackpot in Canada.
But he couldn’t handle the instant fame that came with winning
the grand prize, according to Canada’s Globe and Mail.
“He bought several new vehicles for himself and friends,
purchased a house that turned into a nightly ‘party pad’ and often
celebrated his new lifestyle with copious amounts of drugs and
alcohol,” The Globe and Mail reported. “In a single day, he bought
eight big-screen televisions for friends.”
Muswagon also poured money into a logging business that failed
because of low sales.
He was eventually forced to take a job doing heavy lifting on a
friend’s farm just to make ends meet, according to The Globe and
Mail. Filled with remorse, Muswagon hanged himself in his parents’
garage in 2005.
Suzanne Mullins couldn’t dig herself out of debt.
Suzanne Mullins won $4.2 million in the Virginia lotto in
1993.
She split the yearly payments three ways with her husband and
daughter, leaving Mullins with about $47,000 a year. She quickly
found herself in debt — her lawyer said she shelled out $1 million
for her uninsured son-in-law’s medical bills.
“It’s been a hard road,” Mullins’s lawyer Michael Hart told the Associated
Press in 2004. “It’s not been jet plane trips to the
Bahamas.”
She used future payouts to take out a $200,000 loan with a
company that served a specific market — lottery winners who need
their money faster.
Mullins later switched to a lump-sum payout, but never paid back
the debt. The loan company filed suit and won a $154,000 settlement
that was all but worthless. Mullins had no assets.
Americo Lopes quit his job, lied about winning, and then got
sued.
Construction worker Americo Lopes won the New Jersey lottery,
quit his job, and lied about it, claiming that he needed foot
surgery, reports The New York
Times.
After coming clean to a former coworker, he and a few others
ganged up on Lopes for not splitting the winnings as promised. In a
fraud suit, the coworkers claimed they had all pitched in for the
winning ticket.
The court ordered Lopes to split the prize.
Ibi Roncaioli was murdered by her husband after she squandered
her winnings.
play IbiRoncaioli was murdered by her husband after she squandered her
winnings.
(Tim Boyle/Getty Images)
Ontario resident Ibi Roncaioli walked away with $5 million in a
1991 Lotto/649 drawing, but she didn’t tell her husband how she
decided to spend it.
When Joseph Roncaioli, a gynecologist, found out Ibi gave $2
million of her fortune to a secret child she’d had with another
man, he poisoned her with painkillers, the Toronto Star
reports.
He was found guilty of manslaughter and reportedly asked Ibi’s
family to help foot the bill for her funeral.
Michael Carroll lived in the fast lane and blew it all.
Michael Carroll was just 19 when he won Britain’s £9.7
million— $15 million — jackpot in 2002, the Daily Mail
reports.
But a penchant for crack, parties, prostitutes, and cars put him
back at square one in five years.
Last we heard, the former garbageman was hoping to get his old
job back.
Andrew Jackson Whittaker Jr. was undone by robberies and a
casino lawsuit.
play AndrewJackson Whittaker Jr. was undone by robberies and a casino lawsuit.
(Screenshot/YouTube)
In 2002, West Virginia building contractor Andrew Jackson
Whittaker Jr. walked away with $114 million, after taxes, on a $315
million multistate Powerball draw.
That was just about his last stroke of good fortune.
Thieves ran off with
$545,000 that Whittaker had stashed in his car in 2003. And he
lost $200,000 the same way a year later. He was also sued by
Caesar’s Atlantic City, which said Whittaker had bounced $1.5
million in checks.
Within four years, his fortune was gone.
Billy Bob Harrell Jr. had his prayers answered, but his luck
ran out after he couldn’t say no.
play Billy BobHarrell Jr. had his prayers answered, but his luck ran out after he
couldn’t say no.
(Flickr / Mike Mozart)
A Pentecostal preacher working as a stock boy at Home Depot
got his prayers
answered when he hit the $31 million Texas jackpot in 1997.
At first life was good, with Billy Bob quitting his job,
traveling to Hawaii, and buying a ranch, six other homes, and new
cars. He donated 480 turkeys to the poor, according to Time.
But like many others who win the lottery, he just couldn’t say
no when people asked for a handout. He also ran into financial
trouble with a company that gave lottery winners lump sums in
exchange for their annual checks, but it left him with far less
than what he’d won.
Later he divorced and committed suicide. Shortly before his
death, he told a financial adviser that “winning the lottery is the
worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Willie Hurt’s crack addiction did him in.
In 1989, Willie won a
$3.1 million jackpot in the Michigan Lottery.
Two years later, Hurt was divorced, lost custody of his
children, and was charged with attempted murder — and picked up a
crack-cocaine addiction.
The habit sucked away his entire fortune.
Denise Rossi didn’t disclose the jackpot in her divorce
filing.
When Denise Rossi won $1.3 million in the California lotto, she
kept the news to herself and abruptly demanded a divorce from her
husband Thomas without a word, according to The Los Angeles
Times.
Thomas was shocked but agreed to divorce her anyway. During the
proceedings, Denise continued to keep her good fortune a
secret.
Two years later, Thomas intercepted a letter at
his new Los Angeles home revealing the truth.
He sued Denise for not disclosing her winnings in the divorce,
and the judge awarded Thomas every cent.
Even Denise’s lawyer admitted to People that Denise could have
kept half her winnings if she had been honest with her then
husband. “Her failure to disclose was a fraud,” the lawyer
said.
Meanwhile, Thomas Rossi is enjoying his $48,000-a-year
payouts.
“If it wasn’t for the lotto, Denise and I would probably still
be together. Things worked out for the best,” he said.
Janite Lee spent it all on charity and political
donations.
After winning an $18 million lottery jackpot in 1993, Janite Lee
saw her winnings gone within a decade.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
reports that Lee, a wigmaker from South Korea, blew it on
charity.
A reading room was named after her at Washington University’s
law school, and she was a major donor for the Democratic Party.
But her giving hand, coupled with a little gambling and a lot of
credit-card debt, reportedly did her in. She filed for bankruptcy
in 2001.
Luke Pittard wound up flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
Welsh-born Luke Pittard won a £1.3
million jackpot — $1.9 million — in 2006, but spent almost all
of it on a trip to the Canary Islands, a wedding, and a house.
A year and a half later, Pittard was forced to return to his job
at McDonald’s.
“They all think I’m a bit mad but I tell them there’s more to
life than money,” Pittard told the Telegraph in 2008. “I loved
working at McDonald’s before I became a millionaire and I’m really
enjoying being back there again.”
Rhoda and Alex Toth both landed in court for tax evasion.
Alex and Rhoda Toth hit the $13 million jackpot in Florida in
1990. Within 15 years, they were destitute.
According to the
Tampa Bay Times, the couple spent heavily on a three-month trip
to Las Vegas, which included stays in a $1,000-a-night penthouse
suite at the Mirage. Back home, they bought 10 acres of land.
The two were eventually accused of tax evasion by the IRS after
it was discovered they filed for bankruptcy protections and falsely
reported gambling losses. At the time of their indictment they were
said to owe the IRS $2.5
million.
Alex died before his case went to trial; Rhoda served two years
in prison.
Vivian Nicholson was a clotheshorse who couldn’t stop
shopping.
play Vivian Nicholson is not pictured.
(Spencer Platt / Getty
Images)
Daily Mail UK reports that Vivian Nicholson got a taste of
the good life when her husband Keith won a fortune — £152,300 —
in Britain’s football pools in 1961.
She famously promised the media she would “spend, spend, spend”
following the windfall — and she kept her word.
The couple blew much of Keith’s winnings on haute couture,
sports cars, and a new home, their extravagant lifestyle becoming
the stuff of headlines. When Keith died in 1965, Vivian was hit
with a huge tax bill and declared bankruptcy.
She struggled with alcohol and depression before her death in
2011 — two years after a West End musical celebrated her life in
the play “Spend, Spend, Spend.”
Teen mom Callie Rogers was too young to spend her money
wisely.
Callie Rogers was just 16 when she won £1.9 million — about $3
million — in the UK’s lottery in 2003, and she was too young to
know how to manage her money or where it would lead her, according
to Gawker.
After briefly vowing to manage her winnings responsibly, Rogers
made quick work of her fortune. She reportedly spent millions on
vacations, clothing, cars, breast implants, and according to
British tabloid The Sun, more than
$300,000 on cocaine.
She also reportedly spent more than a quarter of a million
dollars on a bungalow and house for her mother.
Now a 29-year-old mother of three, Rogers is teaching her
children to be careful with money.
“I’m glad they’ll grow up knowing the value of money,” she told
The Sun in February.
“I was too young to win the lottery. It nearly broke me, but
thankfully, I’m now stronger than ever.”
This is an updated version of an article including reporting
from Pamela Engel, Mandi Woodruff, and Michael B. Kelley.
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