lose $500M USD ?
Seems impossible, but the big winners can blow it all the same way the small winners often do.
Need a little proof that money doesn't buy happiness? For these 10 lottery winners, cashing in turned out to have been the worst decision of their lives.
newsfeed.time.com
In 2002, Jack Whittaker won the biggest lottery jackpot in history to that point, a Powerball worth $315 million ($550 million in today's dollars). He chose the immediate cash option, and kept an after-tax haul of $200 million in today's dollars. He had pledged to be generous with charity, and soon got hit with thousands of requests for help, many of which were likely scammers. Though he was a successful businessman before the lottery win, his business fell apart due to over 400 lawsuits against him after his win became famous. He started drinking heavily, spent his time at strip clubs, was robbed repeatedly, and had multiple family members die of drug overdoses. I'll let Time finish it off:
But even Whittaker couldn’t escape his own demons. Beset by legal difficulties and personal problems, he began drinking heavily and frequenting strip clubs. On Aug. 5, 2003, thieves stole $545,000 from his car in a West Virginia strip club parking lot while he was inside. On Jan. 25, 2004, robbers once again broke into his car, stealing an estimated $200,000 in cash that was later recovered. And a string of personal tragedies followed. On Sept. 17, 2004, his granddaughter’s boyfriend was found dead from a drug overdose in Whittaker’s home. Three months later, the granddaughter also died of a drug overdose. Her mother, Ginger Whittaker Bragg, died five years later on July 5, 2009. Whittaker himself is alleged to be broke — a claim he made as early as January 2007 for failing to pay a women who successfully sued him. He’s also being sued by Caesars Atlantic City casino for bouncing $1.5 million worth of checks to cover gambling losses. “I wish I’d torn that ticket up,” he sobbed to reporters at the time of his daughter’s death.
Four years after that excerpt was written, Whittaker's house burned down and his wife barely made it out alive. It was not covered by insurance. He got ill not long afterwards and died in 2020.
The year before Wittaker's win, the biggest Powerball jackpot in history was $280 million, or $495 million in today's dollars. It was split by 4 winners, each of whom took home ~$50 million after taxes. One of those winners was Jack Edwards:
Mr. Edwards acknowledged that he'd made some mistakes in his life, but he said that was all behind him. He also said he planned to put his newfound fortune to the best and wisest use he possibly could.
"I didn't want to accept this money by saying I'm going to get mansions and I'm going to get cars, I'm going to do this and that," he said. "I would like to accept it with humility. I want this money to last, for me, for my future wife, for my daughter and future generations." Then, in practically the next breath, he said he planned to buy himself a Rolls-Royce and that Maddux wanted a Ferrari. In November 2001, Mr. Edwards and Maddux moved into a 6,000-square-foot, $1.5 million home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. The couple married in Maui on New Year's Day 2002.
During his time in Florida, Mr. Edwards amassed a fleet of exotic cars, for which he paid more than $1 million. He also told NBC News that he paid $78,000 for the gold-and-diamond watch on his wrist and $159,000 for the ring he wore. He also boasted of having 200 swords in his collection of replica medieval weapons, and a plasma TV he said set him back $30,000. Mr. Edwards also bought a $600,000 house in Palm Springs, Calif., his own limo company, a $1.9 million Lear jet, three racehorses and a fiber-optics installation company, which he acquired for $4.5 million. A year after he'd won the lottery, he estimated that he'd spent $12 million. In addition to spending profligately on himself and his family, Mr. Edwards reportedly gave generously to old friends who hit him up for cash. He also donated to several local nonprofit organizations, including the Westwood Volunteer Fire Department and the Westwood Boys Club.
The Edwardses' life eventually began to spiral out of control, fueled, according to a Florida newspaper account, by their escalating drug use. Police were called to their home on one occasion in 2004 after Shawna Edwards stabbed her husband with a crack pipe. In September 2005, police again visited the mansion and found the couple's master bedroom littered with used syringes, along with a quantity of cocaine. The Edwardses eventually lost their mansion to foreclosure and moved into a warehouse complex that David Edwards had rented to store his cars and furniture. At the beginning of 2007, Shawna Edwards drove her husband to Orlando and checked him into a hospital. He could barely walk. Not long after that, Mr. Edwards' ex-wife and her husband drove him back to Kentucky.
In March 2007, Shawna Edwards was picked up by police near Orlando on a Boyd County warrant charging her with failure to pay $17,000 in child support to the father of two of her children. The Edwardses would eventually divorce, and in August, Shawna Edwards, now known as Shawna Johnson, was arrested on a first-degree assault charge for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend in a Scott County motel. The victim suffered 10 or 11 stab wounds, but his injuries weren't life-threatening, police said. Johnson could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison if she is convicted.
David Lee Edwards, who went from unemployed ex-con to Powerball millionaire and whose life became a testament to the seductive and destructive powers of sudden wealth and fame, died Saturday in Community Hospice Care Center in Ashland. Mr. Edwards was 58. The cause of his death was not immediately known, but he had been widely reported to have been in failing health in recent years.
There are lots of stories like that, and these are just the ones known publicly.
Need a little proof that money doesn't buy happiness? For these 10 lottery winners, cashing in turned out to have been the worst decision of their lives.
newsfeed.time.com
www.lovemoney.com
Winning the lottery isn't all it's cracked up to be.
www.gobankingrates.com
Before you try to win this Wednesday's $485 million Powerball jackpot, take a look at these real life lottery horror stories.
abc7ny.com
A $935 million Powerball jackpot went 3 months without a winner. But for some past lottery winners, life became worse after snagging the win.
www.businessinsider.com
