Winning the lottery jackpot is supposed to give you financial peace of mind and a better life. But for many who have had it, everything ended in disgrace.
We all know that winning the lottery opens the doors to a dazzling future in which many will face uncomfortable debts or, directly and in the best of cases, will be able to live the rest of their lives without working. But not all stories of winning lotto tickets have a happy ending or end equally well. There are several more than unfortunate cases in which lottery prizes become a curse. Not a few have been upset after having coined the greatest economic joy of their lives with the help of lotto prediction.
The British economics newspaper ‘Bankrate’ has compiled some cases of people who, due to fate, went from having an immense fortune to great bad luck. What is this about? Here we will see the cases of eight people who ended up ruined after winning the lottery.
Evelyn Marie Adams
Evelyn Marie Adams defied all the odds: The New Jersey 24-hour store clerk won a prize of seven zeroes not once, but twice. She got so much money that she had to escape from her city because the requests for help among her family and friends multiplied and grew like foam. Later, she became famous. ” She couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized,” she confessed to The New York Times in 1993. “Some of my relatives were very angry because she had a lot of money.”
In the end, the worst addiction that can befall a person with a great fortune awoke in her is gambling football or live casino. She squandered a large part of the total amount in Atlantic City casinos. Years later, the newspaper ‘The New York Post’ found her and asked her what her life was like so long after her. “I’m broke and I work two jobs,” she admitted. “My advice to anyone who wins a grand prize is to first contact her lawyer and accountant.”
Andrew Whittaker
Andrew Whittaker was a millionaire who already had it all and kept adding. It is hard to believe that an already rich person wins a prize of nothing more and nothing less than 315 million dollars (270 million euros) and then everything goes to hell. After collecting an unprecedented prize on Christmas Day 2002 , he planned to donate a large part of his fortune: “I’m really excited about the amount of good works I can do with this money ,” he told The New York Times ‘.
The problems started. He and his wife divorced. His granddaughter, who had appeared with him on national television shows after winning the award, died under mysterious circumstances. Whittaker began to drink heavily, so much so that he was robbed on several occasions. In the end, it all seemed like a joke of fate: “I should have torn up that ticket,” he confessed to ‘ABC News’.
Bob Harrell Jr.
Billie Bob Harrell Jr. was plagued by financial problems. But in 1997 they suddenly went out of their minds when they won a jackpot of 31 million dollars (26.5 million euros) in the Texas lottery contest which works like the Spanish quiniela. Unfortunately, the harassment of the debts for the loans was more and 1.2 million went to defray them. He bought several new cars and a few houses for his family from him. Solidarity got out of hand, and he ended up donating the money to charities. “He played Santa Claus,” his mother snapped at him in ‘People’ magazine.
But the continuous pressure from strangers asking for money led him to hell. Harrell was forced to change his phone number several times. He and his wife separated. Finally, less than two years after all that, he took his own life. “After you win the lottery,” says a seasoned attorney, “one of the first things you should do is make a list of people you trust.”
Lara and Roger Griffiths
Lara and Roger Griffiths were a dream couple who never argued. Their friends envied them and were happy. But everything changed when they earned 2.76 million dollars (2.3 million euros) in 2005. With that money they bought a million-dollar house and a Porsche. They also made several luxurious trips to Dubai, Monaco, and New York.
Bad luck shook their lives. His fortune was wiped out in 2010 when a stranger burned down her house. Insurance didn’t cover it, and they had to pay a lot of money for repairs and temporary housing. Their relationship suffered, to the point that after several months, Roger left home with the Porsche. The cause? His wife discovered his emails in which he was flirting with someone else. Thus ended the fortune of him and his 14-year-long love.
Martyn Tott
Martyn Tott , 33 years old. No one would say that after having won 5 million dollars (4.1 million euros), his tenth was going to be lost. All they could do was report the loss to the ‘Camelot Group ‘, the company that runs the British national lottery. This convinced the officials that the claim for the prize, even without a physical tenth, was legitimate but… the deadline was missed. Can you be so unlucky? The thing is, there is a 30-day limit to report lost prizes, so the company was not required to pay them. And that did.
That prize became the largest unclaimed amount in lottery history. “Thinking that you’re going to have that kind of money is very liberating. Having it taken from you has the opposite effect. It wrecks your life and puts terrible pressure on your marriage. It was the cruellest torture imaginable”.
Adrian and Gillian Bradford
Adrian and Gillian Bradford won the record prize money in the United Kingdom: a total of 148 million pounds (more than 187 million euros). They soon became fond of the most expensive pleasures: first-class travel, a new home, and sports cars. But it did not seem to make them happy, for 15 months later the couple announced their separation, wrapped in rumours and infidelities. For Gillian, winning the lottery was a “huge burden” . In a statement to ‘The Daily Mail’, she stated that it was “very stressful” for her.
