Unfortunately, his story went from rags to riches and back to rags. Curtis SharpĬurtis Sharp won $5 million playing the lottery in New York in 1982. She torched through the winnings due to drugs - Rogers dropped about $300,000 on cocaine alone - as well as plastic surgery, high-end clothing, gifts and partying. When Rogers won the equivalent of $2.3 million in 2003, she was only 16 years old.Ī decade later in 2013, she had only around $2,500 left in the bank. Learn More: 11 Basic Money Moves Everyone Should Make During Hard Times Callie RogersĬallie Rogers was another lucky Brit who cashed in big at a very young age, but she was even greener and less prepared to manage her money than Mickey Carroll. As of 2016, he was earning a few hundred dollars a week working in a slaughterhouse. Much of it went to drug-fueled partying, with the rest wasted on jewelry, cars and other materialistic excesses. The media dubbed him the “Lotto Lout” as the young winner tore through his newfound fortune with astonishing speed. Mickey Carroll was only 19 years old when he won a British jackpot that sent him into early adulthood with the equivalent of $11.8 million. By 2006, the couple had spiraled into drug addiction, and just 12 years after the win changed the course of his life, David Lee Edwards died alone and broke in hospice care at the age of 58. By the end of the first year, $12 million was in the wind. They blew through $3 million in the first three months.
They bought dozens of high-end cars, mansions and a plane. The couple squandered the fortune on the common goodies that sink so many lucky winners. David Lee Edwardsįive years after Kentucky resident David Lee Edwards won a $27 million jackpot he was penniless and living in a storage shed with his wife. In the end, the couple was left with less than $10. They dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into opening a salon, where Lara was later forced to work as an employee just to make ends meet. Lara got a taste for the high life as the couple paid for exotic cars, an expensive house, designer clothes and accessories, and a pricey private school for their daughter. Roger chased his rock star dreams and spent big bucks for his band to release an album. Lara and Roger Griffiths’ marriage ended in divorce less than a decade after the British couple won a $2.19 million jackpot. Whittaker reveled in the ability to give handouts, which he did until the money ran out, donating stacks of cash to churches, diner waitresses, family members, strangers and his local strip club. The West Virginia construction worker, known for his outsized cowboy hats and even bigger personality, remains one of the most extreme cautionary tales about the lottery’s power to ruin lives.
In 2002, Jack Whittaker won a $314 million Powerball jackpot which, at the time, was the biggest lottery prize in history. Read on to see the hardest-luck cases of lottery loss, and which states love playing the lottery the most. Reckless spending, giving, partying and gambling leave many lottery winners penniless. Winning the lottery seems like a dream come true until the money brings greedy and resentful friends and relatives, con artists and charity cases out of the woodwork. It’s not uncommon for lottery winners to wind up with nothing but wrecked friendships, destroyed marriages, poverty and worse. Most people dream about winning the Mega Millions or Powerball - but they should be careful what they wish for.
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