Here are a few people who became rich overnight!
8 - Kevin Lewis How often do people go into a casino and really
beat the house?
In this case, one guy did beat the house, although it was completely by luck and the
casino decided to play nice anyways.
Horseshoe Casino of Cincinnati Ohio accidentally gave a million each to two distinct Cincinnati
locals named Kevin Lewis, after it let the wrong Kevin Lewis to first collect the prize.
However, obviously, a different guy named Kevin Lewis won the prize.
Horseshoe casino actually owned up to its mistake and let the super lucky Kevin Lewis
collect on the prize.
While reps for the casino declined to provide specifics on the two-step verification process
the contest employs, they did say one of the things that threw them off was the fact that
the second Kevin Lewis was around the same age.
Also, the Kevin Lewis that actually won wasn’t in the casino when his name was called.
There were several other similarities between the two Kevins that led to the confusion.
Of course, the real Kevin Lewis who was supposed to win the prize was paid as well.
In an interesting follow-up, the Kevin Lewis that wasn’t supposed to win the money spent
all of the money within a year somehow, and was actually eventually arrested on hug charges.
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On to the next millionaire!
7 - Sandy Stein Sandy Stein is another hard working person
who had an idea and decided to turn her idea into reality.
Stein had worked for 35 years as a flight attendant, but after going after her idea,
she’s now in a completely different profession with her invention, finders key purse.
She came up with the idea because she was consistently having trouble finding her keys
at the bottom of her purse!
So she came up with essentially a decorative key holder that hangs off the side of purses
so keys can be easily found.
Her idea was so popular, she was able to sell one MILLION of these key finders in her first
year!
Her company has had over 40 million dollars in sales over 11 years, a figure that’s
not too shabby for such a simple idea.
Since she’s gotten rich, Stein says that she’s traveled a lot, but her dumbest purchase
was paying full price cash for a Lexus without even negotiating.
As for the smartest thing she’s invested in?
A team of lawyers whose sole purpose is to protect her patent from any copycats out there.
Can’t disagree with that one!
6 - Oscar and Lorene Stohler Finding oil on your property and making you
a multi-millionaire is a pipe dream that’s more from the past than right now.
However, apparently that dream can still happen!
That’s essentially what happened to Oscar and Lorene Stohler, who were 83 and 82 years
old at the time.
Oscar was raised on that property in North Dakota and ranched there for nearly SEVEN
decades!
Obviously, he never gave much thought to what was beneath the ground.
When oilmen wanted to drill on his property back in 2008, Stohler of course doubted that
oil would be found two miles underground on his property.
He even joked that he would buy a Cadillac convertible and put big horns on it!
Well, they DID find oil on their property, and in less than a year, Oscar and Lorene
became millionaires from the well!
The wealth wasn’t long lived as Oscar passed away shortly after.
However, the couple was able to enjoy the wealth a little bit by buying a new home,
paid in cash of course.
They also established trust accounts for their four children.
Lorene said the only splurge was an automatic sprinkler system for her flowers that surround
the couple's new home.
And Oscar bought a $1,000 ring for his wife to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.
5 - Marv Doniger Whenever you get cancer, it’s devastating
news.
However, when you find out that you’ve had cancer for years, because your full-time medical
doctor neglected to analyze your disease, it’s much much worse.
This is essentially the story of Marv Doniger, a management consultant by profession.
Doniger had to get his bladder removed and he wasn’t able to walk for quite awhile.
However, he WAS able to collect $3.3 million dollars after successfully suing in court.
After getting his windfall, Doniger didn’t make any splashy purchases.
He only bought 2 poodles and a car.
He also set up trust funds for his grandchildren.
Doniger said that anyone that’s presented with a sudden lump of cash is left with set
of choices.
You can use it to satisfy near-term desires, or use it to ensure your financial future.
He said to develop a strategy for dealing with those rainy days that are definitely
going to come.
That and to be aware of those people who present you with investment ideas you don't understand
and don't need to achieve your financial goals.
Hey, I don’t think we can disagree with any of those statements!
4 - David Gehle Anyone of you guys out there join an office
pool for a lottery?
Yes?
Same for us here at Pablito’s Way!
This is exactly how David Gehle won his millions, in a pool for a lotter with his co-workers.
We’ve always thought that it be tough to actually get the money split right in these
situations, but apparently it can be done.
Together with seven of his co-workers at ConAgra Foods, Gehle won a share of $365 million dollars
in the lottery in 2006.
His share after taxes: about $15 million.
That’s a lot smaller number than 365 million, but in any case for David Gehle, it's still
a big win.
Dave apparently has been living happily ever after.
Some portion of Gehle's happy ending has included outings to Vietnam with another coworker who
had won.
He’s been trying to stay out of the spotlight, and apparently he frequently turns down interviews.
After his win, his life didn’t change much.
He still lives a normal life.
He shovels snow for his neighbors in the winter.
For a while after he won he stayed at his job at ConAgra, but he finally quit.
He’s claimed to haven’t bought anything dumb.
He's been moderate with his win.
He stayed in his 720-square-foot, $88,000 dollar house.
It wasn’t until 2011, that Gehle purchased a new home for $450,000 thousand.
Gehle is apparently one of those lottery winners whose smart with his money.
He now drives around in a 2015 Nissan Rogue SUV.
He only buys things when he needs it.
His advice to lottery winners?
Be really careful; be frugal.
Don't blow it all.
Invest.
It's really tempting to spend it all.
Don't.
3 - Jack Whittaker If you’re one of those people who read up
on lottery winners a lot, you may have heard of Jack Whittaker.
He was the winner of a huge 2002 lottery jackpot of $314.9 million in the Powerball!
It was the largest jackpot ever won by a single winning ticket at the time.
Okay, maybe he doesn’t really belong on this list, because what a lot of people don’t
know is the fact that Whittaker was already a multi-millionaire at the time of the win.
He’s one of the few rich people who played the lottery for fun.
However, his story is too interesting to leave off, and he DID win a huge amount of money.
I think most people that follow lottery winners know what happens next.
Let’s just say things got a little weird for Whittaker!
Whittaker first gave 10% of his rewards to Christian foundations in southern West Virginia.
He also used $14 million to build up the Jack Whittaker Foundation, a non-benefit association
that gives nourishment and attire to low-pay families in provincial West Virginia.
In addition, he bought the person who sold him the winning ticket a $123,000 dollar house
and a brand new jeep cherokee.
Even after doing these nice things, Whittaker couldn’t turn around his luck.
His problems started mounting.
A year after winning, he was robbed of around 545 thousand dollars cash that was in a suitcase
in his car.
Another year later, the SAME thing happened again, except this time it was only 200 grand.
And the money was recovered.
Then his granddaughter was found bread and he was somehow a suspect.
Then there were more robberies and more legal troubles that piled up over the years since
the lottery win.
And oh yeah, his uninsured house burnt down to the ground in 2016.
Sounds like being a famous lottery winner is probably a lot worse than just being an
anonymous rich guy!
Hopefully Whittaker’s fortune eventually turns around.
2 - Jonathan Duhamel Jonathan Duhamel is a canadian professional
poker player who’s known for winning the biggest event in poker, the World Series of
Poker Main event.
His career earnings took off when he won almost 9 million dollars when he won the 2010 Main
Event title and became the first Canadian player to win the Main Event title.
Before that huge payday his previous biggest win was around 55 thousand dollars.
After he won, Duhamel chose to give $100,000 of his prize money to the Montreal Canadiens
Children's Foundation, which was the biggest donation ever given to them.
Duhamel wasn’t just a lucky guy who happened to bink a tournament, as he’s captured other
prestigious titles to fully solidify his status as an elite poker player.
As of March 2018, his career tournament winnings total more than 17.8 million dollars.
What’s your favorite rags to riches story?
How would you like to get a few million dollars?
By winning the lottery?
Or by selling a business?
Or by getting a high paying job and saving to millions?
Let us know in the comments!
1 - Jan Koum Imagine working on a business that hasn’t
really been making money for you for years.
But you’re absolutely convinced in the idea, and the tech behind the idea.
You’re essentially working for free on the idea and you’re burning through a lot of
your personal cash in order to create your vision.
However, one day someone decides to buy your tech and all of a sudden you’re a billionaire.
This is essentially the Jan Koum story as incredulous as it sounds!
Back in 2009, Koum purchased an iPhone and understood that essentially the next big thing
was to develop app within Apple’s app store.
Koum decided on developing whatsapp, as he thought that it would be really cool to have
statuses next to individual names of the people in a phone book!
The statuses would show if you were on a call, your battery was low, or you were at the gym.
Koum very quickly picked the name WhatsApp in light of the fact that it sounded like
"what's up".
Whatsapp essentially became instant messaging with a bunch of great features, such as the
famous double checkmark that allows someone to know you’ve read their message.
WhatsApp eventually got Facebook's attention.
Mark Zuckerberg reached out to Koum, and in February of 2014, Zuckerberg met Koum over
for dinner and made a proposal to buy Whatsapp for a whopping 19 BILLION dollars!
Of course, Koum accepted.
I doubt Koum will ever have to stand in line for food stamps, like he did when he first
moved to California.
Here’s what’s next!