I won $1000 at slots in Vegas - which is kind of cool because I am not a gambler, and was burning time while hubby and in-laws gambled.
One of my good friend’s Aunts won $1.5 million in a lotto - she definitely blew it all and is back to living paycheck to paycheck.
$500 in a church fundraising drawing. Given that it was 1974, it was a more significant amount at the time.
An electric clothes dryer in a promotional drawing a grocery store was running for the introduction of some new detergent or another in the mid-1980’s. The detergent came in a green box…
I won $4000 with a royal flush on video poker at the Reno airport.
I won about $2,500 about 5 years ago ; missed 55 million by having a “43” rather than a “41” on the ticket. It was a nice to have a little extra money ; I think we used most it to pay for a school trip for my daughter to NYC.
I worked with someone who was incredibly lucky. He never won the top prize but he won fix six numbers on a pick six three times in the span of a couple years each one netting a couple hundred grand. He used the money to buy some eighteen wheeler trucks, brought family over from Poland and paid to have them learn how t drive them and started a trucking company.
He never quit working at the place where I worked (and he had a very physically demanding job) at least while I was there.
I also knew someone that had won the Lottery some years before. She got a check every year for 20 years for $30 something thousand. It didn’t let her retire but she bought a new car every couple of years and had nice vacations and a second home.
I don’t know what a 50-50 is or how that works, would you explain?
I think you might be in the lead at this point… as far as actual Dopers.
I had a spectacularly lucky day of Poker in Vegas once. One of those wonderful times when everything I did worked for me. I turned $100 into $1200 and the table hated me. One guy raised his bullets only double, I think, so I called with 2/4 and got two pair. He went batshit, seriously, they had to tell him to go away and get a hold of himself.
You don’t have to be a total idiot to do that… if you have been pretty low income all your life and you come into money, you can use up a lot just filling in a lot of pretty normal things. And it’s not as much as you think… I found that out just by actually earning a couple million over a few years and seeing it disappear. (I grossed that with my business that I owned with my ex… there were business costs, of course, but they were pretty minimal and we managed to blow through quite a bit personally without doing anything really wacky and indulgent. I think the biggest single things we did was we each bought new cars, financed, after we spent 15K buying him a penismobile that died after a few months. And we bout a bigass TV in 2000 for $2800. The rest was buying our house with not that much down and just dribbin’ and drabbin’ it here and there…)
What did she spend her money on?
I’ve seen these thing where they sell tickets or numbers or whatever and the money is split 50-50 between a charity and the person who gets their number drawn.
I was in a bowling league where a couple of people ran one of those things every week. There was some suspicion that it wasn’t on the up and up. After some complaints the winners seemed to be a little more random, but my concern was that the rest of the money wasn’t going to any charity. Of course that’s no different than any charity fund-raiser.
I’m pretty sure I’m about to win around $800 million. I’ll let you know in a couple of days.
I hit the jackpot on a slot machine at the Cable Beach casino in Nassau when I was just barely old enough to get in. A lights flashing, bells ringing, attention grabbing jackpot. It paid out 1,000 coins. On a nickel slot. 1,000 coins that amounted to a full $50.
Not a bad return for .05, but not exactly life changing.
Probably not all, and the rules evolve so it may not even be true anymore. I do know I’ve read in more than one place (including here, I think) that it happens, though.
This also happened to a friend of mine who was on Minute To Win It with Guy Fieri. He and the other contestant won $25,000, to split, and were told they would not get paid until the show airs. It didn’t air for a little over a year later in the next season. Since it never aired during the season they filmed it he thought he was screwed but one day they called him and told him what day they were going to air his episode. We went out to celebrate that night.
He says the show kind of screwed him over twice.
For that show they have contestants go to a warehouse in Hollywood and practice games for a whole weekend. He said it was 10 hour days but they had breaks and lunch. Then you go home and hope they call you. Well when he went to tape the episode he said the lady they paired him with was not very good at the tryouts and he had done pretty well and passed most of the games.
And then when they got to the game where they were playing for $125,000 the game they had initially set up was one which he did really well at during the tryouts and he said that during the commercial they swapped games to one he said hardly nobody at tryouts passed.
For me, my two biggest wins was $30 on a slot machine in Vegas. We ate at the buffet that night I tell you what. And then $20 on a scratcher.
This is so sweet. 
I won a 50-50 at church too, last year; it was between $100 and $200 and I just gave it right back. It was at a fundraiser after all!
I once won a bag of groceries. Included in the bag were two cans of dog food. I didn’t have a dog, but didn’t want to waste it so I went out and got one. Epic win! Great dog, and lasted for years.
I was once the only woman in my department and I won the football pool three weeks in a row, on account of filling the sheet out with my lucky pencil. The win was not so much in terms of money, but bragging rights, as nobody else won even twice, let alone 3X (in a ROW). And I know nothing about football. I was beating people who were sportswriters.
When I played with a group of people at my job we won $100 once. Split eight ways that wa $12.5 each.
Years ago, my wife won a trip from her then-home-country of Malaysia to Italy. She had to write a paragraph about her global dream activity and location – for example, previous winners did things like “climb a mountain in the Himalayas.” Hers was “make and eat a pizza in Italy”! She was told that the accompanying camera crew was sick of schlepping up mountains and such, and were relieved when her proposal won.
The weird thing is, it was sponsored by (and part of a promotion for) a cigarette company – and she’s never smoked a thing in her life!
This is great.
We had an informal 'Biggest Loser" competition at the place where I work. I came in second, good for about 80 bucks.
The most I’ve ever won on a lottery ticket was four bucks.
On the rare occasions when I play a little casino blackjack, I usually make enough to at least finance a trip through the buffet line. Obviously I wouldn’t be doing “Biggest Loser” at the same time.
I did double my money once in Vegas. Passing through town, I stopped at the Nugget, put a quarter in the slot machine nearest the door, got 50 cents back, walked back out, got in the car and drove on.
Hah. I kill me.
Tangentially related to the thread…
When my friends were getting married/having babies and I was the shower host, the “prizes” I would give for the “stupid shower games” portion of the event were scratch off lottery tickets. We had a few $1 and $3 winners, nothing big, but it was sort of a fun stupid prize.
(Now I’m starting to get invitations for those babies’ weddings. I might need to buy more lottery tickets)
I made a fair score on an office Superbowl pool. I don’t follow football at all (though it doesn’t matter on a blind pick), and only bought a square to be a good boss. My one square won the first and third quarters and the final score. The guy who organized it walked in on Monday and handed me about $250. I hadn’t even watched the game.
I bought pizzas for the whole office for lunch.
Most on the lottery was £10, I think, but I haven’t played in years.
I surprisingly won a competition that came with a credit card statement, I had to call an automated number and punch in my phone number. The prize was to see a music awards show in London, with a stay in an incredibly expensive hotel overlooking Kensington Park for two. We were taken to the awards show in a stretched limo, Duran Duran played which was cool, then to an after-show party (free drinks!) where there were exactly zero stars.