11 lottery winners who lost it all Generally, it is believed that winning
a lottery is a chance to change one's life. The lucky people who win think it is an answer to
their prayers and will be the solution to all of their problems. But even after being
blessed enough to get their hands on such great fortunes, some lottery winners lose it
all very quickly. There is even a particular term for this phenomenon, 'lottery curse.'
It may be hard to believe that even after winning such vast sums of money, people end up losing it
all. But it happens more often than you think. Enlisted here are eleven such cases of people who
had to taste the lottery curse. Through their lavish spending, they turned their win sour.
So, let's get right into it! 11. Gerald Muswagon
Canadian Gerald Muswagon bought a $2 lotto ticket that made him an instant millionaire in 2011.
He won a $10 million jackpot but blew through it in just a few short years. He bought a house that
doubled as a nightly party spot hosting his ever-growing legion of hangers-on.
He also blew the cash on cars, partying and gifts, while racking up a string of legal entanglements.
By the end, he was doing manual labor on a farm to support his girlfriend and six young children.
Seven years after his big win, he hanged himself in his parents' garage.
If you think this horror lottery curse is terrible, wait until you watch our top 2 stories.
10. Sharon Tirabassi
Sharon Tirabassi won $10.5 million in a Lotto Super 7 jackpot in Canada during the year 2004.
Excessive spending and giving her life an over-the-top makeover in the years after she won
drained the money quickly. Assuming the money was bottomless, the vacations, cars, houses,
and handouts piled up until there was nothing left. By 2013, she was riding a bus to the
part-time job she worked to support her children because all her winnings were gone by then.
Showing us that nothing lasts forever unless you take well care of it, especially money.
9. Keith Gough In 2010, a 58-year-old former baker
named Keith Gough drank himself to death. He was alone and penniless just five years after winning
the equivalent of nearly $11 million with a lucky British lottery ticket. Soon after winning,
his once-stable life devolved into a blur of exotic cars, racehorses, and luxuries like stadium
box seats. After the dramatic transformation he went through after winning the lottery,
his 25-year marriage came to an end. Leading him into a path of devastating depression.
8. Alex Toth Alex Toth won $13 million in the Florida
lottery in 1990. He lived well for a few years, then went broke by spending all the money and not
investing correctly. After he went broke, he split up with his wife. He got in trouble for filing
false tax returns and spent some time in a mental institution. He died penniless at age 60 in 2008.
7. Michael Carroll Michael Carroll was a sanitation worker in
England when, at age 19, he won 9.7 million pounds in 2002. The money was equivalent to
about 14.4 million dollars at the time. A mansion, drugs, and gold jewelry ate up the money quickly.
He found himself in prison a couple of times, and the prize money was gone within ten years.
By 2012, Carroll was broke and living off unemployment checks. After that,
Carroll took a job at a cookie factory in Scotland, making only $300 a week. More recently,
he managed to get a job at a slaughterhouse, making 400 pounds (about 511 dollars) per
week. Now he says he's grateful for his job and having a second chance at life. Carroll says
he's happy to be alive, sober, and out of jail so he can spend time with his young daughter.
So far, he has looked at some shocking stories but let me tell you that this video is about
to get more intense, so make sure you sit down and watch until the very end. You will
be shocked at how fast some people can burn through MILLIONS and MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
6. William Post William Bud Post III
won $16.2 million from the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988. He thought his problems were solved,
instead quickly found himself in debt. Even though Post didn't have a pilot's license,
he decided to purchase a plane. He tried to help his siblings start a restaurant and a used-car
business. His former girlfriend, who was also his landlady, sued him for a third of his winnings.
Most didn't pay her, and as a result, a judge froze his assets. The relationships with his
family members also went sideways. Word says one of his brothers tried to hire an assassin
to kill him. Talk about family relationships gone wrong. One day a repossessing man tried to take
Post's car away, when he saw him, he opened fire. Later, he was put behind bars for this.
In the end, he lived off Social Security disability payments until he died at age 66.
5. Janite Lee South Korean
immigrant Janite Lee won $18 million in the Illinois lottery in 1993. Eight years later,
when she filed for bankruptcy, she had less than $700 in the bank and $2.5 million in debt.
Her donations were well-intentioned, but she simply gave too much. She donated considerable
sums to educational, political, and social causes. In exchange for a lump sum, she sold
her rights to future annual payments. But even that wasn't enough to keep her out of bankruptcy
court. Although her gambling habit reportedly cost her more than $300,000 per year, she may
have spent more on charitable and political donations. Her generosity included $1 million
for Washington University to build a new library. In 2001, all of her fortune went completely dry.
4. James Hayes James Hayes worked as an
overnight security guard in 1998 when he won $19 million playing California's Super Lotto game.
But he quickly went from winner to loser: His ex-wife reportedly took half the jackpot money,
and Hayes developed a heroin habit costing him $1,000 a week. He then resorted to robbing banks
to keep up his lifestyle. The FBI nicknamed him the "PT Cruiser Bandit" and the "Seasoned Bandit"
because of his car and gray hair. In 2018, Hayes pleaded guilty to bank robbery and was sentenced
to 33 months in prison. Of course, by that time, there was not one dollar left of his earnings.
3. David Lee Edwards Five years after David Lee Edwards,
a resident of Kentucky, won a jackpot, he was penniless and had to live in a storage shed with
his wife. He married a woman 19 years younger than he was. The couple squandered the fortune
on material things that bought the demise of so many winners. They bought dozens of high-end cars,
a big mansion, and a plane. In the first three months, they had blown through $3 million.
By the end of the first year, they had burned more than $12 million. The couple later spiraled
into drug addiction, and just 12 years after hitting the jackpot that changed their life,
their house was lost to foreclosure. David died in 2013 completely broke at age 58
in a hospice care facility. A few years later, his wife was arrested for stabbing a boyfriend.
2. Billie Bob Harrell Jr. Billie Bob Harrell Jr. is a
well-known name for the lottery curse and spending millions of dollars in no time. He hit the Texas
Lotto jackpot in 1997 but burned through his $31 million in just two years after winning.
The profoundly religious family donated heavily to their church and individual congregation members,
but his expenses and spending were not all donations. He and his wife bought a couple
of houses and expensive cars for themselves and their family members. They paid for costly
trips to Hawaii and lived the most luxurious lifestyle possible. With his excessive spending,
money quickly dried up. Soon after the money was gone, Billie's marriage fell apart,
and their marriage ended in divorce. This was too much for Billie to handle, and just after two
years of winning more than 31 Million dollars, his son found him dead... He had taken his own life.
And finally, let's go to the soundest name on Lottery Millionaires that lost it all.
1. Jack Whittaker Andrew "Jack" Whittaker, unlike most of
the winners, was already wealthy. His company was making contracts worth about $15 million a year.
On Christmas morning in 2002, he won the largest jackpot ever awarded to a single Powerball ticket.
He won a whopping amount of 314.9 million dollars from his lottery ticket.
But Instead of an annuity, he chose a lump sum payment and ended up taking home a little over
113 million from his actual amount. However, Jack Whittaker's lottery winnings changed him
more than the money he had earned through hard work. Though he did many good with the money,
he won, spending around 15 million to build churches in West Virginia. Jack also set up a
charitable foundation and even bought the woman who sold him the ticket, a new house, a new car
and gave her some extra cash. Despite his good deeds, the lottery curse hit him. His company was
hit with frivolous lawsuits from people who wanted to get their hands on some of that jackpot money,
costing him millions in legal fees. Under strain, Whittaker started to go on a downward spiral.
He started drinking hard and getting into fights. If this wasn't enough, his granddaughter, Brandi,
got involved with the wrong people and died at a young age a year after her boyfriend
died from an overdose. The death had devastating consequences for his family. Andrew's daughter,
Brandi's mother, was found dead seven years after the jackpot was won.
His wife filed for a divorce, and soon, Andrew had lost his family and all the money he had won.