# Stories of lottery winners squandering their winnings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 30, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261 "2009-03-30T05:20:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/21 "2009-03-30T23:17:17Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > These stories pop up on E! as investigatory documentaries. Some of them are quite sad, because you want to shake the people and say, “What the hell were you thinking??” FWIW, I’ve never watched a single show on E! that didn’t leave me wanting to do that to some degree, sometimes to myself. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/22 "2009-03-30T23:34:17Z")
Did you catch the one on _20 Best and Worst Plastic Surgeries_? They showed that [Cat Woman](http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com/2008/11/04/the-many-faces-of-jocelyn-wildenstein/)…I couldn’t look away. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/23 "2009-03-30T23:51:24Z")
A big powerball winner up north was a maid for a super rich person so she already knew that lifestyle from the other side. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/24 "2009-03-31T00:03:15Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > Did you catch the one on _20 Best and Worst Plastic Surgeries_? They showed that [Cat Woman](http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com/2008/11/04/the-many-faces-of-jocelyn-wildenstein/)…I couldn’t look away. :eek: That was actually near the top of the list of shows I was thinking about. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/25 "2009-03-31T00:17:04Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > What in the hell is a fruit machine? Must be one of British things, [like “stopcock”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10686185) ---
**Author:** ![Hook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ecae2f/32.png) [@Hook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hook)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/26 "2009-03-31T11:46:30Z")
A Fruit machine in the US is a Slot Machine (fruit symbols on the reels). ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/27 "2009-03-31T13:03:33Z")
I love it when lotto winners go bankrupt. So it turns out people who gamble are not all that great with even more money. Shocker. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/28 "2009-03-31T13:44:53Z")
I just won 29 dollars in PA’s Super Seven. I put 20 of it in a piggy bank and I’m gonna squander the rest. (I already spent two of it on next week’s Super Seven.) ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/29 "2009-03-31T14:07:17Z")
[Billie Bob Harrell Jr.](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1289247/posts) ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/30 "2009-03-31T14:12:48Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I love it when lotto winners go bankrupt. Postin’ “me too,” like some brain-dead AOLer. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/31 "2009-03-31T14:30:23Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > That is kind of odd. As far as I know, most every lottery - if not all of them - already give you the option of taking the annuity, or taking the cash value. Can’t imagine there is much business left for that guy to work with. > [@KneadToKnow](#): > > The story was aired more than a few months ago. It’s original air date from the web site is 4/6/07, and IIRC, the guy is talking about a job he had a decade or so before that. He’s written a book about it, too: [Money for Nothing](http://www.amazon.com/Money-Nothing-Journey-through-Millions/dp/0061284181/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238453156&sr=1-1). Correct. This was before many (or maybe even any) of the lotteries were offering cash settlements. In fact, the point was made in that _TAL_ episode\* that the lottery commissions saw this side business and decided that they could do it better and more profitably (for themselves), effectively putting most of those middlemen out of business. However, I still hear ads for companies offering to turn insurance settlement annuities into immediate cash, so I guess they’ve not all gone away. \*For the OP - the [\*This American Life \*episode](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1182) referred to might be of interest to you. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/32 "2009-03-31T15:25:52Z")
There have been several TV shows on This. Many of them squander it and go broke. Some do not, but they don’t make good TV. I have seen a few that have wasted mega millions. But one show showed a few who took care of their winning quite well and are living a comfortable life. It happens. One woman said she was broke before the lottery. Now she is broke with more zeroes after it. If you can not handle money now, a few million will not fix that. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/33 "2009-03-31T19:32:23Z")
It’s not only lottery winners [http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1153364/index.htm](http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1153364/index.htm) > [@](#): > > • By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress because of joblessness or divorce. > > • Within five years of retirement, an estimated 60% of former NBA players are broke. Granted those numbers contain many guys who never hit the mutimillion dollar paydays, and I’m sure even a quite few who only had a year or two at league minimum(300k or so). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/34 "2009-03-31T19:41:51Z")
> [@Hook](#): > > A Fruit machine in the US is a Slot Machine (fruit symbols on the reels). Ah, thanks! Makes perfect sense now. I was thinking she’d spent all her money on smoothies. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/35 "2009-03-31T19:54:18Z")
Hey, if I spent 10 million dollars on hookers and blow, I won’t have _squandered_ it unless I got an inferior product for my money. And if I die snorting top-notch coke off the boobs of my 5 thousand doller a night hooker, that would be a perfect way to go. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/36 "2009-03-31T19:59:55Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I love it when lotto winners go bankrupt. > > So it turns out people who gamble are not all that great with even more money. Shocker. The rule of thumb is that if you’re not good with money before coming into a large sum (through the lottery, an NFL contract or whatever), your story will probably end badly. But if you’re fairly sensible to begin with, you might do OK. [One guy in Idaho](http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/20/magazines/fortune/lottery_winnings.fortune/index.htm) who was formerly a manager at several Gold’s Gym franchises won a lump sum of $85 million and set out to turn it into a billion dollars. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/37 "2009-03-31T20:03:43Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I love it when lotto winners go bankrupt. > > So it turns out people who gamble are not all that great with even more money. Shocker. Heck, I buy lottery tickets now and then and I’m fine at math and money. The likelihood of me winning the lottery is ludicrously remote, but I already have my first week planned, and it involves around-the-clock work on investing half the jackpot as safely as possible. (In Canada you get all the money up front, tax free, so in fairness, it’s a bit simpler to deal with here than it is in a place where you get an annuity and a hefty tax bill.) I’d have a nest egg only an asteroid collision could possibly wipe out - saving accounts in multiple chartered banks and overseas banks, index funds, government paper, even gold bullion. Nobody, not even me, gets a penny until most of the cash is invested as safely as possible. I wouldn’t even quit my job to do it, I’d take vacation. But then, I’m an adult who’s fought to have this level of material comfort and lived the lessons of debt and poor money management, and worked my way up, so I’m naturally in a mindset of “Hoard money, trust no one, tell asshole relatives to suck it.” **wolfman** points out, though, that the millionaire-to-loser phenomenon doesn’t just apply to lottery winners. Many former pro athletes go broke; I’ve heard of all kinds of them who end up bankrupt. They live beyond their means, failing to adjust for the carrying costs of their possessions after the paydays stop, or they invest in businesses with overly optimistic estimates of the likelihood of success. Mike Tyson famously went broke, but so did Evander Holyfield. Robin Yount went broke. Dorothy Hamill went broke. Happens to celebrities in other fields, too. MC Hammer is the pinnacle of the phenomenon. They don’t even have to retire. Baseball player Jack Clark went bankrupt WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF A MULTIMILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT. According to the story Clark owned 17 luxury automobiles at the time and owed on all of them. Either you’d enough of an idiot to buy 17 cars or yoiu aren’t. I wouldn’t buy 17 cars, if for no other reason than I’d never know which one my sunglasses were in. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/38 "2009-03-31T20:17:20Z")
Conventional wisdom is that a lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. I say, better than a tax on people who are good at math! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/39 "2009-03-31T20:27:15Z")
Some previous threads on the topic: > **[Ah, poor baby. Win $34 million and your poor widdle life goes to crap](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=348049)** > > Won 34 million and just couldn’t handle it. Poor thing. Give me 34 million dollars, and I guarantee I’ll make you proud. What the hell is wrong with people? > **[Poor old lottery winners.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=428913)** > > I keep reading that “The average multi-million dollar lottery winner is broke within 18 months”. Is there any truth to that? Sounds like envy (sour grapes?) to me. I know that some fall on hard times, but the average, and broke in 18 months? I... > **[Do 95% of all lotto winners go broke?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=341730)** > > I’ve heard numerous times from numerous sources that 95% (or 75% or 50%, or whatever random percentage the speaker chooses) of million-plus lottery winners are in a worse financial state than prior to winning within five years (three years, ten... Of course, we Dopers are much smarter than that! > **[If You Won the Lottery...](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=411207)** > > I know we’ve done a lot of these before but here’s my take on it… If you won the lottery, regardless of the amount, what would be the order of importance for getting things taken care of? For example, mine would be: College education for any of... ---
**Author:** ![McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a3d4f5/32.png) [@McDeath\_the\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McDeath_the_Mad)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261/40 "2009-03-31T20:40:56Z")
I work for a lottery corporation in Canada. I don’t know any specific stories, but I do know when someone wins a large amount of money we do advise them to talk to lawyers and financial analysts and not do anything too rash. Although once we know a winner is coming to pick-up a cheque we do do some kind of interview to ask them a few questions. We usually find-out what kind of vehicle they’ve always wanted, then we arrange with a local car dealer to have that model of car waiting for them. I’m not sure how many people end up keeping that vehicle, but it’s pretty neat to see their faces! One person who worked here had a sister that lived across the hall from someone that won $3,000,000. Their sister got a cheque for $15,000 because they always helped each other out and neither had much money (they’d borrow boxes of KD off each other, give the other left overs, etc.). The reality is in today’s economy a million dollars ain’t what it used to be! I’m 34, and for me to consider retiring I’d have to win $5 million or more. If I won a million bucks, I’d buy a new house (outright, probably in the $400,000 range), a couple new vehicles (sensible vehicles for my wife and I say $60,000 combined), give my immediate family (parents, in-laws, sister, wife’s brother) some money ($5,000 a piece). The remaining $500,000 would be invested in something safe. I’d then retire at 45 or 50 instead of 55 or 60 (if I wanted too). MtM [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-of-lottery-winners-squandering-their-winnings/491261.md?page=3)