Winners, beware! Meet the four who went from jackpot to jack squat

NY Post ^ | March 30, 2012

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Jack Whittaker

Home: West Virginia

Won: $315M in 2002

One of the saddest tales is that of Jack Whittaker, the cowboy-hat-wearing West Virginia contractor who scored a $315 million Powerball win in December 2002.

Already a millionaire, Whittaker pledged to give 10 percent of his fortune to charity. But legal and personal problems took a heavy toll, and he started hitting the sauce and hanging out at sleazy jiggle joints.

Just eight months after his big score, he was robbed of $545,000 in a strip club. A month later, his granddaughter died of an overdose from drugs bought with an allowance from him. A short time later, his daughter also died of a drug overdose

I wish I’d torn that ticket up,” Whittaker sobbed to reporters at the time.

By January 2007, Whittaker told cops thieves had emptied his bank accounts.

[Nifster]

Dysfunctional people with money and thewn dysfunctional people broke.... no real surprize

[Fair Paul]

A fool and his money ...

[TalBlack]

“I wish I’d torn that ticket up,”

He still doesn’t get it. Poor guy.

[AtlasStalled]

easy come, easy go

[Baynative]

This is glimpse into why our country seems not to understand the deficit problem we have thanks to Obama. People just don’t realize there is a bottom and that wealth is not endless. Especially, people in elected office.

[oh8eleven]

he was robbed of $545,000 in a strip club
What did they do, hi-jack the wheelbarrow he used to carry his half mil into the club?

[Larry Lucido]

How did he ever get his first million?

[nodumbblonde]

This is why no amount of wealth distribution would ever be enough to eliminate poverty.

[ArtDodger]

John Wayne was right.. Ya can’t fix stupid!

[PGR88]

It just goes to show that wealth, and poverty, are states of mind.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I really dislike stories like this, because they amount to just one thing:

Morality tales written by amoral journalists. This is about as bad as morality tales created and performed by immoral Hollywood types.

Yet the people who really advocate this stuff are both bitter and greedy. “I will never have a lot of money, so other people should never have a lot of money. Because money corrupts people by making them think they are better than me.”

You hear people like Al Gore, who inherited his money from his corrupt politician father, who complains about other people who “win life’s lottery”. He really has no grasp of how *most* people with money actually *earned* it through their hard work.

The typical American millionaire lives in an average house in the suburbs, looks and acts normal, doesn’t travel a whole lot, continues to work as either a small businessman or professional. They continue to put in more than an 8-hour day, including a lot of “unpaid overtime”. And they invest in only very conservative investments. If stocks, not for a quick sale at a higher price, but dividends.

The typical American who isn’t a millionaire often assumes that there are only two ways to become a millionaire: by either staggeringly hard work and deprivation, or by “winning” money by inheritance or in a lottery. While for a tiny percentage this is true, for most it isn’t.

The bottom line is that money is like alcohol, “the neutral spirit”. It is not inherently good or bad, but can be put to very good use, or abused to your detriment.

That some lottery winners failed is predictable. The majority spent some, saved most. If they gave away a large part of it, the same rule applied to those who received the gift. If they were wise, they benefited. If they were foolish, bitter and greedy, like journalists, they probably wasted it.

[dfwgator]

If you took all the money from the rich and gave it to the poor....within a few years, the rich would have all of the money back, and the poor would still be poor.

[BipolarBob]

yeah, blame the ticket. That’s what losers do is blame others.

[Baynative]

But, there are also people and stories like this!

[dfwgator]

It just goes to show that wealth, and poverty, are states of mind.

Which is why the Communists knew the only way they could keep their power was to kill the rich, once they gained power.

[Oratam]

New York area folks will remember Curtis Sharp who won $5 million back in '82.

He burned through all of it.

"I was always carefree," Sharp said. "A fool and his money soon shall part." If he had the chance to do it over, "I wouldn't have been so easy to rush into things. I would have paid more attention to my finances."

He has advice for the newest generation of lottery winners: "Take a vacation, go away and clear your head," he said. "Get a good financial planner. Get a good lawyer."

"Make sure you pay tithes to your church," he added.

Not that he's complaining about his losses. He said finding God has filled the gap. He preaches at a church near his home and visits prisons, where inmates usually ask about his partly charmed life.

"My main thing is to give them the word of God," Sharp said. "It's the only thing that will last."

[from PHYLLIS FURMAN, DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER, Monday, October 05, 2009]

[The Great RJ]

When Lotto fist started in Iowa back in the about 20 years ago, I remember one of the first million dollar winners was an unemployed guy and his wife who at the time were living in a trailer home in a seedy neighborhood in Des Moines. They claimed to have been spending as much as $50 per week on Lotto tickets. One of the first things they did with their winnings was to take a bunch of their friends on a two week trip to a high end resort in Jamaica. Needless to say they were back living in their trailer with less than two years. There is a saying among state legislators that lottery is a tax on people who aren’t very good at math.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Looks like his story ended well after all.

[Oratam]

I agree. Significantly, he doesn’t wish he’d never won, just that he’d been smarter, less rash, and had been more careful about whose advice he took. I think his experience makes him perfectly suited to prison ministry.