Lottery winners were not found for the $900 million dollar jackpot last night and that brings the jackpot up to over a billion dollars and counting.
A billion dollars is a lot of cash to for lottery winners to figure out.
Sometimes, the lives of lottery winners change for the very best. Sometimes winning the lottery is the worst thing that has ever happened.
There are countless cautionary tales out there about lottery winners who decided that giving it away was the most satisfying and went on to live long, happy lives. After a period of buying lots of fun stuff, of course.
However, there are too many lottery winners who blew everything, lost their families and dignity or even succumbed to murder or suicide, all because of instant wealth.
For example, Andrew “Jack” Whittaker of West Virginia was the lucky lottery winner of a 2002 $315 million Powerball jackpot.
Whittaker was already a successful and wealthy married businessman. In fact, he was already a millionaire.
After the joining the golden list of lottery winners, Whittaker quickly began to live a life of excess.
Like other lottery winners, he blew large sums of money at strip clubs and even had a briefcase full of cash stolen when he passed out drunk in one.
He said, “People have tried to rob me a dozen times.”
Again, like many lottery winners, his marriage ended in divorce and things aren’t going so well for him these days.
He is now married again and owns two businesses that “haven’t been doing very good. I’m still working and I’m 68 years old.”
For an even worse example of lottery winners whose lives were ruined, William “Bud” Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988.
Of his experience, Post said, “I wish it never happened. It was totally a nightmare.”
Within a year, he was $1 million in debt and his own brother was in jail for hiring a hit man to kill him.
What do you think would happen if you were among the lottery winners when this goliath jackpot is dispersed? Will you be happier or exceedingly more miserable?