Winning the Lottery is the Worst Thing that Ever Happened to Me

Winning the lottery strikes like a stroke of luck, but what about life after lotto? “Does it become a curse?”. We have seen many people who won lotteries worth millions. Winning a lottery sounds like a dream come true. Many woes are obliterated instantly, and the future looks bright. Surely, it seems fabulous at first glance, but there’s more to winning the lottery than it meets the eye. After winning the lottery, their lives change.            

Life after winning the lottery may not stay glamorous forever. Whether they win a million dollars or a billion, eventually about 70 % of lotto winners lose or spend all that money within a timespan of five years or sometimes, even less. When they win the money, they become overwhelmed and start spending money lavishly. They usually don’t spend it on any productive activity. Mostly they do not grow due to the fact that their fortune was not organic enough. They start overspending and go to profligacy. Twist of fate occurs when they don’t think before extravagance.

Life after winning the lottery may bring big changes for the winners.

Many lottery winners returned to the same fate, as they used to be before. Here are some examples:

A boy named Carroll, aged 26, won $15 million in a British jackpot back in 2002. He was soon left with nothing after dishing out cash on parties, cocaine, hookers, and cars. He was nicknamed "the lotto lout" and also spent his former fortune on a villa in Spain, quad bikes, demolition-derby cars, and flashy jewelry, the Huffington Post reports.

Carroll was jailed in 2006 following an altercation and was later convicted of drug possession. A man named Whittaker, of West Virginia, was already worth around $17 million when he won a $314.9 million multi-state Powerball jackpot in 2002.

After his winnings, Whittaker had hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash stolen from his cars, home, and office. He pleaded no contest to assaulting and threatening to kill a bar manager. He was arrested twice on drink-n’-drive charges and was accused of groping women at a racetrack.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. In 2004, his 17-year-old granddaughter Brandi Bragg was found wrapped in a tarp under a junked van outside her boyfriend's house. State police reported that her body had been there for weeks: she died of a drug overdose. His daughter later died of unknown causes. Both Whittaker and his wife said that they wished they had torn the ticket up.

Billie Bob Harrell Jr. said, “Life was good in June of 1997 when Harrell Jr. and his wife Barbara Jean held the only winning ticket to a Lotto Texas jackpot of $31 million”.

After his big win, the “Houston Press” reported Harrell Jr. purchased a ranch, as well as a half-dozen homes for himself and other family members. He, his wife, and all his kids got new vehicles. He made large contributions to his church. If members of the congregation needed help, Harrell Jr. was there with the cash.

But then his life started unraveling and his spending and lending spiraled out of control.

After splitting with his wife, Harrell Jr. locked himself in his upstairs bedroom, stripped his clothes off, pressed a shotgun barrel against his chest, and pulled the trigger, the investigators said.

According to the Houston Press, shortly before his death, Harrell Jr. confided to a financial adviser: "Winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me."

By looking into these examples, it is clear that when it never rains, it pours.

Your desire for shortcuts makes you an easy prey. The road to success is full of temptations. Cutting the corners will get you off track. Shortcuts are just an illusion; there’s no quick road to success. It’s not the way to get all the comforts in your life. When one thinks to take shortcuts, he has to pay back too and in very little time. By adopting this kind of way, only a short period of life can be made pleasant but it doesn’t last forever. People don’t grow organically and they go back to the more tragic and unlucky consequences.