Is blowing all of your lottery winnings a common thing? The internet is filled with stories of people who won a fortune, only to throw it all away. It’s not as common as you may find, but you have to realise that most lottery winners remain anonymous. Only the ones who announced their winnings, and decide to throw it all away, ever attain the rank of being famous. Let’s have a look at three of the biggest wastrels of all time.
The lotto lout
Michael Carroll was a notorious lottery winner who won the UK National Lottery. When somebody wins £9.7m, you would expect them to splash the cash a little bit. Not Carroll, though. He splashed the lot. Michael Carroll decided that race cars and parties were the way to go. What kind of parties? Demolition derbies. These are races between cars, with the sole intent of smashing up the cars by crashing them into one another. Only one car will be left running at the end of it all.
Carroll successfully managed to squander his winnings on drugs, women, and more cars to destroy. Unfortunately for him, Carroll also ended up in jail, and is widely regarded as the worst person to ever win a lottery. Today, he hasn’t a penny, and works in a shortbread factory for £6 an hour.
The druggie
Callie Rogers become Britain’s youngest ever lottery winner, when she pocketed £1.9m in 2003. She was just 16 years of age. It didn’t last, though. The money soon went. Under pressure with all of that cash, Callie spent it on drugs, cosmetic surgery, holidays, and endless parties. Approximately £250,000 was spent on cocaine. Rather unsurprisingly, Callie met the father of her two children during the first weeks of her new found wealth.
Nowadays, Callie has two children, works a regular job, and has just £2,000 in the bank. She says she is happy, but we’ll bet that she is kicking herself for being so silly in the first place.
The waster
Perhaps one of the most famous cases of a millionaire losing the lot was David Lee Edwards. This former felon from Ashland, Kentucky won $27 million in cash on the Powerball lotto. He opted to claim the $27 million lump sum, rather than the $41 million installment option. Yet, 12 years after his amazing jackpot win, he died in a hospital, alone and financially ruined. Initially, Edwards bought a mansion, plenty of flash motors, and of course, a plane. He had just won a share of $280 million, in 2001, so why not, you might think?
As is often the tale, David had a drug addiction, and spent money like there was no tomorrow. Eventually he and his wife Shawna would end up living in a storage unit for five years. She soon left him and remarried. It was this same ex-wife and her new husband that drove him to a hospital in Ashland, to die aged 58. Every penny of his $27 million win was spent, and he died owing thousands of dollars to his friends. Today, his 26-year-old daughter lives a careful life, and still plays the lottery, hopefully that she will one day follow in her dad’s footsteps. Tiffani Edwards insists that she would put it in the bank for her kids, which is something perhaps her father should have done for her. David Lee Edwards’ ashes remain in a tin, since nobody can afford an urn for him. It’s sad, but that’s the way it can be with lottery blowouts.
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