Sunday's Washington Post Magazine has a long story about life afterwards for the West Virginia man who won the biggest single Powerball payout, in 2002. You might remember him, he dressed in all black, including black cowboy hat.
I have always been fascinated by these lottery-winners-gone-wrong stories, and this is a particularly horrible one. It boggles my mind how fast people can spend millions of dollars and ruin their lives. I can't get enough of these stories.
Rich Man, Poor Man: Jack Whittaker's big Powerball win cost him -- and everyone around him -- dearly
2 comments:
Yeah! Why can't sensible people win the lottery? Like me, for instance. Guess I'd have to actually play first.
well, one-third of lottery winners end up declaring bankruptcy so i guess that leaves two-thirds fairly sensible people. But you never hear about them since it doesn't make a good story: "well, I bought a mercedes and paid off the mortgage, and sent my kids to college, took some trips with my wife, put the rest away, oh that's about it, mmm-hmm..."
the thing to do is collect your award anonymously if possible. otherwise you get tons of requests for money, and become a frivolous lawsuit target. i think the only person i'd tell would be my spouse. but then if your kids or other relatives found out they'd probably be really pissed you didn't tell them. would it be wrong to hide it from your kids?
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