The Fastest Ways Lottery Winners Have Spent Their Jackpots

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Sometimes hitting it big doesn’t mean you’ve got it made. Read on to find out how these winners lost it all. 

Americans have been all-in on lottery tickets lately. The North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) estimates that lottery ticket buyers spent $108 billion on tickets in 2022.

Of course, the vast majority of us never win from those ticket purchases, and even for those who do, it’s not always the personal finance Cinderella story it’s made out to be.

Here are five times people won big in the lotto but quickly burned through their jackpot.

1. A $16.2 million payday gone in a decade

William “Bud” Post won the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 with a life-changing $16.2 million jackpot. Unfortunately, the life-changing aspect wasn’t the way Post hoped. His landlady successfully sued him for one-third of the winnings, and a brother hired a hitman to murder him.

Post spent some of the money on family businesses — including a used car lot and a restaurant — and buying a mansion, cars, motorcycles, a sailboat, and a plane.

Post was plagued with debt after winning the jackpot, and all of the winnings were spent within 10 years.

2. $10.5 million evaporated in nine years

Canadian resident Sharon Tirabassi won a $10.5 million lottery jackpot back in 2004 and spent almost all of the money within nine years. She spent the money on the typical physical trappings: a house, nice cars, clothes, and traveling. Tirabassi also gave money to friends and family.

Within three years, she had spent half of her winnings. And while she spent her jackpot relatively quickly, one good thing to come out of it is that she put money into trust funds for her kids.

3. $5.4 million gambled away

Evelyn Adams won two multimillion-dollar jackpots in just four months, a seemingly impossible feat. The total from both winnings gave Adams $5.4 million in 1986. Unfortunately, the money didn’t last very long.

Some of the money she used sensibly, including setting up a college fund for her daughter and paying off debts. She also spent some of the money on typical purchases like a car and handed out money to friends and family.

But as of 2012, Adams had spent all of her money, a lot of which went to slot machines in Atlantic City and business deals that never panned out.

4. A $113 million windfall

Jack Whittaker — a West Virginia construction contractor — won a $314 million jackpot in 2002, the biggest single-ticket jackpot in history at the time. He opted to take a $113 million one-time payout.

Whittaker was known to give a lot of his money out to people who asked for it, starting a foundation, as well as spending large sums on gambling and strip clubs. Two years after winning the lottery, Whittaker also had at least $600,000 in cash stolen out of his car.

Whittaker said he spent $45 million of the winnings for an industrial development project, and estimated $14 million was given to charity. In addition, Caesars Atlantic City sued him for bouncing a $1.5 million check.

Whitaker passed away in 2020 after years of personal and financial troubles.

5. $18 million for a different kind of party

Janite Lee won $18 million in 1993, and unlike some other winners, she quickly started giving a lot of it away. In addition to giving a large portion to charities, Lee also donated a lot of the money to the Democratic Party.

Lee also gambled away a lot of her money, to the tune of an estimated $347,000 per year. Between gambling and giving her money away, Lee quickly blew through her jackpot.

Eight years after she won, Lee had just about $700 and was $2.5 million in debt.

How to hold onto your money if you win the lottery

Statistically speaking, you don’t have to worry too much about winning the lottery. But it’s fun to dream, right? So, if you ever find yourself with a winning ticket, here are a few steps to take to make it last.

1. Keep it to yourself

No, not the money. Keep the fact that you won to yourself. Generally speaking, it’s not great for everyone you know — and people you don’t — to know that you’ve come into a lot of money. Some states allow lottery winners to keep their anonymity, and some don’t. But even if the win is public record, not publicizing it will keep people from reaching out to you and asking for a slice of the pie.

2. Hire a professional financial advisor

Coming into a large lump sum of money would be difficult for even the most level-headed person to manage. So, if you want your money to last, hire a financial advisor to help you figure out how much you can spend, how much you can give away, and how much you should invest to make it last.

3.Create an estate plan

You don’t need a lot of money to create an estate trust, and doing so has some significant benefits. A trust will lay out where your money will go after you die and how it will be disbursed. You can even put some money into a trust ahead of time so you’re not tempted to spend it, so it goes where you want it to after you’re gone.

And if you don’t win the lottery, you might actually want to consider yourself lucky because it didn’t end up great for some of the winners. And in any case, you don’t have to win it big to retire a millionaire.

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