- [Voiceover] Most of us would love to win the lottery.
The odds are stacked hopelessly against us,
to the point that it's hardly worth buying a ticket,
unless it's simply considered entertainment.
Still, some people have beaten the odds
and won massive jackpots.
But many of these winners have ended up
looking more cursed than blessed.
Four out of every ten lottery winners
aren't any happier than before they won the lottery.
Lottery winners are actually more likely
to file for bankruptcy than the average person
and are more likely to develop a drug addiction.
If you win the lottery, you're more likely
to end up divorced, and even more likely to end up dead.
To help you succeed where others have failed,
we've compiled a list of ten things you should never do
under any circumstances if you win the lottery.
Number ten is having a stash of
illegal substances inside your home.
Or you could end up like a North Carolina woman
who won a staggering $188 million Powerball jackpot.
When local police showed up to arrest her roommate
for violating the terms of his parole,
the officers believed they smelled pot.
Obtaining a search warrant and found marijuana
and paraphernalia in the house,
the 26 year-old mother of four was cited
and arrested for possession, proving that
even if you're lucky, you're not above the law.
Number nine is throwing your lottery ticket into the trash.
Or you could end up like one Massachusetts couple
who threw away a million-dollar winning lottery ticket.
While the two realized their mistake and dug their ticket
out of the garbage, you may not be so lucky.
So it goes without saying: keep track
of your winning lottery ticket.
Number eight is telling everyone you know.
If you win millions of dollars,
most people immediately feel the urge
to brag to every last person they know.
The trouble is that telling everyone you know
before you collect your winnings puts you in danger,
and in more ways than just one.
Lottery winners have ended up kidnapped,
flooded with emails and phone calls
begging for cash, scammed, and even murdered.
Number seven is giving your winning lottery ticket
to someone else to redeem for you.
Sometimes people can be too trusting.
Even if the stakes involve hundreds of millions of dollars.
So this is when an undocumented immigrant in Georgia
gave his winning lottery ticket to his boss
with the promise that they would split the cash.
Instead though, his employer took the money and ran.
Number six is bringing your winnings to a strip club.
If you try this, you could end up just like Jack Whittaker,
who brought a half a million dollars to a strip club
and was robbed of $545,000 the same strip club.
Number five is believing that you are the best person
to manage millions of dollars in assets.
If you go from living at paycheck to paycheck
to a multimillionaire, does it seem likely
that you will know the best things to invest in
and the best financial planning strategies?
Some lottery winners have taken
investment advice from naive relatives
and their friends, who are both unlikely financial experts.
Many lottery winners who took their financial matters
into their own hands ended up in bankruptcy
as a reward for their initiative.
Number four: Don't assume you're a genius at business.
Chances are that if you hadn't started any businesses
before you bought a winning lottery ticket,
you probably hadn't already started one for good reasons.
For instance, Ken Proxmire, a tool grinder from Michigan
won $1 million in the 1977 Michigan lottery
and used his winnings to indulge his inner entrepreneur.
He opened up a chain of stores with his winnings.
Several years later, his business failed
and Proxmire was left with $100,000 in debt.
Number three is not paying your taxes.
In the United States, your lottery winnings are taxable.
But for some lottery winners, taxes
are just too much of a bother.
For instance, one man in Pennsylvania ended up in prison
after trying to avoid paying taxes on his lottery winnings.
This probably doesn't need to be said, but pay your taxes.
Number two is giving all of your winnings away.
The worst example of this is probably
the wigmaker Janet Lee, who blew her fortune
on charity and political donations.
Her lottery winnings bought her
a reading room named after her
at Washington University's law school, and millions
of dollars in contributions to the Democratic Party.
Eventually, after a decade-long
generosity spree, she filed for bankruptcy.
And number one is spending all of your winnings.
By far the biggest downfall of lottery winners
comes from simply spending.
They often quit their jobs and don't use their money
to bring any meaningful investment income.
Instead, they go on spending sprees which will inevitably
drain every last penny of their winnings
and put them back to square one.
Thank you all for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video.
And if you did, don't forget to leave a like
and subscribe if you haven't already.
And be sure to check out our other lists.
And we'll see you all next time.