Here are a few of the strangest situations lottery winners find themselves in!
9 - Liquor Store Promises One of the biggest things that winners should
worry about are the promises they make before they win, because most of the time, it just
comes back to haunt them!
This was especially true for Eva Reyes, a woman from northern California who promised
the owner of the liquor store where she bought her lottery ticket that she would split her
prize if she won.
Sometimes these promises are made because it’s one of those things you just say to
someone as a joke just to make conversation.
However, in this case, she made that promise because the liquor store owner fronted her
the money to buy the tickets!
When she won a $1 million prize with the ticket she bought from the liquor store, the man
went on to sue her for what he believed was his half of the money.
When she was interviewed by the media, Reyes stated that she had in fact promised him a
part of her winnings, as a thank you for his help.
There’s actually even a note in play here!
According to her attorney, the note where she wrote down the promise clearly states
she would give him only $50,000.
However, the note supposedly has an extra zero that was squeezed in, according to her
attorneys.
She said she told him she was only supposed to give him 50 grand for his “help”.
Of course, the liquor store owner took legal action to make sure he would receive his $350,000
after taxes.
Seems like a he said she said to us here.
Anyone know the resolution to this case?
8 - Breakups 2 makeups?
Break ups suck, we all know this already.
Splitting up is already emotionally draining, but imagine having a break up and then realizing
your ex wins the lottery!
For a couple in Florida, this became their reality: fighting over a million dollar prize
after breaking up!
They had lived together for two years when, in 1993, Lynn Poirier told her boyfriend at
the time, Howard Browning, that if she won the lottery, they would split the prize.
Little did she know she would have to hold that promise…...a lonnnng time later!
Spoiler alert - Poirier actually did win the lottery.
She won a million bucks!
Or so she thought at least!
This is when she realized everything might get messy.
Because 8 years after their breakup, Browning decided to pursue legal action and sued her
for half the prize money!
Not only did he file the suit, he actually won!
According to Florida law, a verbal agreement like this example is completely valid, provided
that it was made when they were still a couple.
Unfortunately, for Poirier, she had to file for bankruptcy after losing in court.
She had already invested her winnings buying some buildings and businesses that didn’t
go too well.
Maybe not telling anyone she won a lottery might have helped?!
7 - Staying private Winning the lottery is a life-changing experience,
no doubt about it.
But what about the fear of everyone knowing how much money you just won?
This is exactly what went through the mind of a woman in New Hampshire.
After winning the Powerball prize of $559 million, she decided to fight in court to
make her identity remain private, something that took a long legal battle.
The problem was that she did something that would have legally prevented her from keeping
it private.Apparently, in New Hampshire, if you sign the back of your lottery ticket,
you legally expose your name for lottery officials to use.
This is a practice that many people do to make sure they’ll remain as the winner regardless
if their ticket gets stolen.
Because she had signed the back of her ticket, she was liable to have her identity exposed.
In fact, when she received the $264 million prize after all taxes, there still was no
way of knowing whether or not she would be able to remain as “Jane Doe”.
In the middle of her legal battle, she realized that her state law allowed her to create a
trust and receive the money through a trustee, while she waited for the court to decide whether
or not she would keep her name off the public eye.
Ultimately, she was successful, but it hasn’t been the case for other winners, so if you’re
worried about losing your ticket, don’t forget about your identity as well!
6 - Don’t tell my wife If there’s one person we tell almost everything
to it’s our significant other.
So, picture this: you're married to your wife or husband.
Everything seems to be fine.
But then you find out he or she hid $600,000 dollars from you!
What would you do?!
It turns out this was exactly what happened to Donna Campbell of Florida.
She found out her husband was hiding his lottery win from a lottery pool he had with his coworkers.
The worst part, or the funniest part, was the length he went to keep the secret up,
such as never having the TV on and disconnecting the phone.
Her suspicions went up further when she got a postcard about a new home purchase to her
husband.
She eventually did a simple Google search and found out the news of her husband’s
lottery win.
When she finally confronted him, his first reaction was to deny everything, but he then
confessed but came up with the excuse that he had bought the ticket for a daughter from
another marriage.
And then, poof, he just left!
So, she decided to sue for her half.
However, to make a long story short, a judge rejected her demand for half the money.
5 - Anyone but the boss
Winning the lottery is every ticket buyer’s dream, but when someone decides to play, they
also have to make sure they can collect.
Take the case of Jose Antonio Cua-Toc.
He played the lottery as an undocumented immigrant and won 750 grand before taxes!
However, as you would expect, he had a dilemma on his hands.
So what does a desperate man do in a situation like this?
Obviously, they rely on the help of their closest friends.
Because that’s why we have friends right?
Well, at least those people who are our actual friends!
Cua-Toc, who knew he would get deported back to Guatemala if the lottery administrators
knew of his undocumented status, called his friend and boss Erick Cervantes to help cash
the prize for him.
As a supposedly good friend, his boss went in to cash Cua-Toc's check, but something
else happened: he decided to cash it and keep the money!
Things escalated when his friend even started saying that Cua-Toc had decided to give him
the money.
Fortunately, surveillance footage demonstrated that it was in fact Cua-Toc who had purchased
the ticket, and he eventually won his case, but not after Cervantes had already spent
roughly 223 grand.
And the kicker?
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold was placed against Cua-Toc after the
case.
Yeah…...
4 - Family Bond?
Family is bond that not even money is able to break...right?!
Nope, not really.
There are plenty of stories involving siblings, cousins, uncles and close friends battling
over the millions of dollars a lottery ticket brings into their lives.
And this story is no exception – on this occasion, a mother had to deal with her son
stealing her prize money!
Etta May Urquhart won 51 million dollars in the Mega Millions lottery in California!
She asked her son, Ronnie Lee Orender, to double-check that the numbers matched up because
she couldn’t believe it.
Once she realized she had won, she drove to the gas station where she had purchased the
ticket with her son and her husband.
However, she had her son sign the lottery ticket instead because she was so excited
and couldn’t hold a pen!
That was a bad move because her son had other ideas.
Because he signed the ticket, he was the winner.
But his mom was the person who had actually bought the ticket and things went south from
there, as her son controlled the money.
The case eventually went to court, where a settlement was eventually reached, with the
details undisclosed.
3 - Poof part 2
Pulling a disappearing act seems to be a common thing among lottery winners.
In this case, the bond these coworkers had made supposedly was so strong, they told each
other that they would split the prize money if they won the lottery.
According to Leslie Underwood, when their boss handed them some lottery tickets for
the Arkansas State Lotto, she and her coworker promised each other that they would split
the money if one of them won.
Yeah, it was a nice promise until it’s time to pay up!
As soon as her coworker Mandy Vanhouten won, she just ghosted.
She just left and never went back to the office.
Underwood saw that Vanhouten cashed her prize in the news and tried calling her, but of
course, she never returned Underwood’s texts or calls.
However, Underwood decided to file a lawsuit against her friend.
Who knows how a judge would rule in this situation, because the case eventually reached settlement,
with the terms undisclosed.
Chalk it up as a win for Underwood?
2 - Undue Stress
Donations are a gift that allow many people to use money for good things.
But sometimes, people forget that they ARE, in fact, gifts and it depends on the desire
of the person whose willing to hand them out.
And in this case, we see a series of unfortunate situations that make a donation seem like
a curse.
Marie Holmes won a $188 million lottery prize and found herself in strange financial situations,
such as paying bail bondsman over a million dollars in fees to bail her boyfriend out
many times.
This was just the tip of the iceberg unfortunately .
She received an official lawsuit from someone she would've never expected: the pastor of
her local church.
Pastor Kevin Matthews claimed that Holmes had promised to make a big donation once she
received her lottery money, but was surprised to not receive any kind of money from her
when the time came.
He also said that he had been put into intense stress that led him to start taking anxiety
medication and antidepressants.
Apparently, Matthews had also made verbal agreements with realtors to use the $1.5 million
dollars Holmes had allegedly promised to buy a piece of land and build a retreat for the
church.
Holmes had in fact donated $700,000, but it wasn’t enough for him.
Matthews decided to sue her for 10 million dollars anyways for what he called undue stress!
Does this guy sound like a pastor anyone would want?!
1 - For Good Luck Winning doesn't necessarily mean you've got
something good in your hands.
And this case is the perfect example of that.
Barb Redick and her nephew Tyrone MacInnis both decided to play a game called Chase the
Ace, a lottery similar to a 50-50 draw.
. Instead of half the winnings going to the winner, the winner gets 20 percent of the
lottery pool, but get a chance to pull an ace of spades from the deck of cards.
If the winner pulls the ace, they also win a jackpot made up of the remaining 30 percent
of the ticket sales from all previous lotteries.
Barb ended up winning the draw!
The problem was, she had her nephew sign her ticket for what she called, “good luck”.
She claimed that she had planned to share some of the prize, but never half of it.
Fun fact: all of this happened while they were publicly receiving the lottery check.
Right after they both received the check, she said she was taking her nephew to court!
She even went on a rant about how he didn’t deserve the money and how she used to consider
him like a son!
Talk about awkward!
They eventually settled and made up, with her nephew ending up with a little more than
double the 150 grand she had supposedly promised earlier.
Here's what's next!