Johnathan Vargas won around 35 million on Powerball. He’s apparently decided to create a women’s wrestling federation called “Wrestlicious.” And Jimmy Hart is involved. Oh, and Vargas himself is going to be playing an on-screen role, “JV Rich.”
You can check out the demo video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei93yTpJSj0. I especially like the fact that one of the girls actually rhymes “delicious” with “wrestlicious” which must have taken a long time to figure out.
So, yeah, I figure he’ll be one of these stories soon enough.
One of my brother’s closest friends’ grandmother won a substantial sum in the lotto (not 200 million but something like 8 or 10 million), and pissed it all away gambling within a couple of years. I think the most her and her family got out of the money were new cars.
My stepsister’s ex-step-grandparents (does that make sense? They are no relation to me) won about 11 million dollars about 10-15 years ago. It destroyed their family.
But I am not sure it was primarily because of the money. The grandparents were controlling, self-absorbed racist assholes to start with. The lottery winnings gave them the means to control their relatives for their own twisted goals and amusement.
Grandparent-mandated divorces (i.e. divorce that “spic” or we’ll disinherit you; this is why they are my sister’s ex-step-grandparents), power plays, intrigues.
The grandparents loved it. The family all hates one another now and are waiting for the winners to die.
All of our national lotteries are paid-out in lump sums. Our big wins vary from $3.5 to ~$80 million tax free dollars.
Our prize payout staff are trained to tell all winners to not make any crazy purchases until they have a chance to talk to a financial advisor and/or a lawyer.
Personally if I ever win big, I would pay off my mortgage ($200,000) and my other debts ($7,000) buy a new car and try to set aside enough into a safe low risk investment where I could live off of the interest ($5 million at 3% is 150,000k/year so even after taxes you’re still going to clear $100,000).
The big ($380 million?) MegaMillions winners seem like a good example. One winner claimed their half of the prize within a day or two of winning. The other hasn’t surfaced yet – I’m assuming because they’re trying to do it the “right” way: get financial and legal advice first. Perhaps try and shield their names from release, etc.
The other thing I’d be doing if I had won that much money (and I didn’t) would be to be moving all of my belongings out of my apartment and into storage and preparing to be out of it and be in a different apartment or Residence Inn type of place the moment I claimed the money, in preparation for not being found and/or burglarized once my name got out there.
Oh indeed. Michael Caroll (mentioned upthread) was in the local paper last year, moaning about people who seemed to think he should have stuck the money under his mattress and forgotten about it. Or, y’know, taken the necessary steps to have a quarter of a mil per year to live on for the rest of his life. :smack:
In the U.S., state laws determine whether you can be anonymous or not. There are currently four states where you don’t have to have your name released–Delaware, Kansas, North Dakota and Ohio. (Cite on PowerBall’s website. Mega Million’s site just says it varies from state to state.)
I believe it used to be just Delaware, so there may more states in the future.
Well, yeah. Unfortunately or Not, they are married, and spouses are entitled to half. Divorce the fucker and rejoice as he spends his time in jail and otherwise pisses away the money or is killed for it.
That reminds me of a story from Ontario (I think it was) from a couple of years ago - the husband won the lottery and didn’t tell his wife while he proceeded to divorce her. Let’s see if I can find a link - here it is - the strange case of Raymond Sobeski. Apparently his ex-wife took him to court over the winnings, and the terms were not released. I’d like to think she got half, and then some more because he was being a huge jerk.
