• What man spent all his money on Christian charities and strip clubs?
Who decided to invest in “Wrestlicious”?
Here are 10 of the dumbest lottery winners ever to grace the Earth
10 – Amanda Clayton • Michigan native Amanda Clayton won $1
million on a game show put on by the state’s lottery in September 2011.
• Clayton celebrated her newfound windfall by continuing to accept welfare benefits.
People were kind of not okay with that.
• She was charged with felony welfare fraud and ordered to pay back the assistance she
received and in September 2012, only about a year after her lottery win, Clayton turned
up dead of an apparent drug overdose.
9 – Michael Carroll • When Michael Carroll won the UK National
Lottery in 2002, he said he was going to spend his money modestly on a simple 3-bedroom house
near a lake, so he could fish.
• Sometimes people don’t do what they say they’ll do.
Carroll spent his money on cars, drugs, parties, and women, and obtained celebrity status in
the UK as the man known as the “Lotto Lout,” and “King of Chavs.”
• In 2006, he went to jail for picking a fight in public, and was already facing rumors
that he’d spent all his money.
And in 2010, he re-applied for his old job as a garbageman.
8 - Jack Whittaker, Jr.
• Jack Whittaker was a successful businessman already worth about 17 million dollars when
he hit the biggest powerball jackpot in history at about $315 million.
• Less than a year later, thieves stole over a half-million dollars in cash out of
his car while he was busy at a local strip club.
When asked why he carried around a suitcase with that much cash, he simply said, “because
I can.”
• Since he won the lottery, Whittaker found himself entangled in a number of lawsuits,
including one where he bounced 1.5 million dollars in checks at Caesar’s Palace in
Atlantic City to cover gambling losses., and another in which he groped some random woman
at a dog track.
• This is probably a good time to mention he also gave 10% of his winnings to a number
of Christian charities.
You know, before all the strip clubs and gambling and molestation charges.
In what is probably an unrelated note Whittaker’s house burned down last year.
It was uninsured.
7 – Jonathan Vargas • 19 years old is much too young to have
35 million dollars drop into your lap, but that’s what happened to Jonathan Vargas.
• When you’re sitting on that kind of money it’s not a bad idea to look at some
investments, maybe start up a business.
Unless that business is an all-female professional wrestling league called “Wrestlicious.”
• And your partner in the business is a guy known as Jimmy “The Mouth of the South”
Hart, which is the best con-man name imaginable.
Needless to say, Vargas is broke now.
6 – Ibi Roncaioli • Ibi Roncaioli of Ontario, Canada won about
5 million dollars in 1991, and promptly began giving that money to her children, which is
just fine.
• She gave about 800,000 dollars to her two sons – one that she had with her husband
Joseph, and one from a different father.
Still no problems.
• The trouble came when her husband Joseph discovered that all the money was gone because
Ibi had given roughly 2 million dollars to a secret third son, to yet a different father,
unknown to her other family.
• After finding out about this, Joseph, who was a doctor, was found guilty of poisoning
Ibi to death with painkillers.
One report claims he even asked Ibi’s family to help pay for the funeral.
5 – Suzanne Mullins • Suzanne Mullins won 4.2 million dollars
in 1993, which she planned to split equally with her husband and daughter.
Her share worked out to 20 annual payments of 48,000 dollars.
• By 1998, she was stretched too thin and took out a loan for about 200,000 dollars,
using her annual payments as collateral.
• But Virginia lottery rules changed in 2000 to allow lump-sum payouts, so Mullins
took the rest of what she could get, which dried up the yearly payments, which meant
no more loan payments.
• In 2004, the loan company won a judgement against Mullins, who still owed over 154,000
dollars on that initial loan.
But it didn’t much matter – Mullins had completely out of money by then.
4 – Willie Hurt • Nothing complicated about how Willie Hurt
spent the 3.1 million dollars he won in the Michigan Lottery.
• Within two years of his jackpot, he was completely out of money, having spent half
of his fortune on a divorce settlement, and the other half on crack.
• That’s not a joke.
Willie Hurt spent all of 3 million dollars on crack and a divorce.
Somewhere along the line he was also charged with attempted murder, as well.
3 – William “Bud” Post • After winning $18 million in the Pennsylvania
Lottery, Bud Post bought a restaurant and a used-car dealership in an apparent attempt
to be a famous local businessman that does his own commercials.
• He also bought a private airplane.
No, he did not know how to fly.
• Then he was sued by an ex-girlfriend, and both his brother and his sixth wife tried
to kill him.
Post was out of money and filing for bankruptcy to escape a 1 million debt within a year of
his jackpot. 2 - Billie Bob Harrell Jr.
• Billie Bob Harrell was a former Pentecostal preacher and Home Depot bag boy who won $31
million in the Texas Lottery, and had the misfortune of being unable to say “no.”
• He ended up loaning out money to friends and relatives who came out of the woodwork
to ask for it, and was broke within two years.
• In 1999, barely a year and a half after his jackpot, Harrell committed suicide, but
not before saying, “winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
1 – Rhoda and Alex Toth • When you’re completely broke, a 13 million
dollar jackpot should be the best thing that ever happens to you.
They wisely took the 20-year payout option, receiving just over $650,000 a year.
• For some reason, the Toths’ newfound wealth didn’t shake their habits of writing
bad checks and growing marijuana plants, which led to lots of legal trouble.
• Eventually, they were down to living in a trailer in Florida, powered only by their
car’s engine.
Alex died while awaiting trial for tax evasion, and Rhoda ended up in prison after lying about
her physical condition to get out of standing trial herself.