How lottery winners dispose of their winnings

Juan Rodriguez won $149 million and then divorced.

Columbian emigrant Juan Rodriguez pulled off a real jackpot of $149 million in 2004. Luck had clearly not been on his side all his life, but at one point everything changed. Before he won, he was working as a security guard at a car park and was barely managing to cope with a difficult financial situation. And after winning there was another surprise if his spouse wanted a divorce. The motive was very simple, she reckoned that half the winnings were the maximum she could get out of the barque.

After that, the winner started to be much more careful with her money and even started taking special courses to save money.

2 wins in a day for Cary Collins

Compared to the previous hero the American didn’t win so much, but still the fortune turned to him.

While filling up his car, Cary decided to buy an instant lottery ticket. After wiping off the protective layer, he realised that he had won a prize of $55,500.

Of course, he wanted to celebrate, so he bought himself a large pizza and some more tickets. And by happy coincidence, he won another $200,000.

Big win after 97 years of living in poverty

Nguyen Van Het – a resident of Vietnam in 2010 won a very big sum of $310,000 for the country at the age of 97.

Nguyen Van Het’s relatives gave him a small sum as a gift during the Lunar New Year celebrations. Such sums on the eve of the holiday bring good luck. And afterwards, he just wanted to see how lucky he would be by purchasing a lottery ticket.

After receiving his winnings, the man was very happy and started to hand out the money to the crowd that had gathered outside the house. But the local authorities intervened in time to ensure that the old man did not end up without the money in the end.

Winning for a homeless man

A Nigerian resident, compared to the previous winner, immediately gave her own winnings to the first homeless person she met.

Rosemary Obiekor won just over 15,000 euros in 2099. It wasn’t much, but at the time the average wage in the country wasn’t more than $62.

The woman immediately said she would give the money to the first beggar she could find, as she had heard stories of lottery winners ending up in a bad way. And in fact, Rosemary did as she said and handed the money she had won to a beggar with a small child in her arms.

30 million roubles for Nadezhda Mukhametzyanova

There have been winners in Russia, too, and the sums are quite large. For example, in 2001, Nadezhda Mukhametzyanova was working as a dryer at a factory in Ufa when she got lucky quite unexpectedly.

After that, she decided that the best solution was to live the high life. Immediately she bought two flats in the city and a couple of cars. But since there was a tendency to drink alcohol, things didn’t work out as planned.

Immediately there were new friends and forgotten relatives who were looking for profit. Eventually the cars were wrecked, one of the flats burned down, the sons became regulars at the gambling halls and Nadezhda herself died in total poverty after just 5 years.