Workers at the fast-food joint who pooled their cash for tickets are furious at a colleague who claims she won with a ticket she bought for herself and has no intention of sharing.
Posted on 04/04/2012 5:59:40 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
—he was robbed of $545,000 in a strip club—
How do you do that?
When I was about five, I drained my piggy bank at a cool aid stand.
True story.
About $10, which was a lot in 1959
A young couple in our area were one of the first winners in our state’s millionaire lotto. The paid off and renovated their historic home, bought new “used” cars for each. Both got college degrees so they could get “better jobs”, put money in savings for their children’s education and gave away ten per cent. A good start for a couple still in their twenties.
Forgot the renewed wedding vows and Honeymoon they had never had the money to take.
Dropping money on someone doesn’t make them a “winner” anymore than dropping a phsyics book on someone makes them smart.
—He still doesn’t get it. Poor guy.—
My thoughts exactly.
I have heard that those that do keep the money often find themselves losing friends and even family because everyone is angry that they don’t share the wealth.
I have a brother in law that earned the money the hard way. I am guessing he is worth maybe a billion. He gives the family shirts for Christmas. And as for me, we’re living “God Bless the Child”. And that is a good thing. He has flown us to Cabo in his jet, Flown us to his Yacht in the islands off Juneau and stuff like that (the ride in the Beaver was my favorite part). But he doesn’t give us “stuff” and when we are at restaurants, we all pay for our own meals.
And that’s how it should be.
I think one of the first things a “responsible” lotto winner needs to do is look for new friends at the first sign of bitterness.
The trips are fun, though. :-)
—How did he ever get his first million?—
Stole it from a drunk at a strip club.
-—Morality tales written by amoral journalists. This is about as bad as morality tales created and performed by immoral Hollywood types.-—
Insightful post. TY.
It is said that for every ten men that can cope with losing everything, there is only one that can cope with striking it rich.
And the problem is that the wealth is “sudden”.
If I ever win the lotto, the first thing I will do is hire an accountant, and every time any charity asks for money I’ll just give them my accountant’s card, who will politely tell them no. Unless it is a charity I really DO want to support.
I suppose that I should buy a ticket first though. Maybe some day.
Actually, I have said that if God wanted me to win the lotto I need buy only one ticket. So I did. 14 years ago.
I didn’t win...
“Dressed in a bowler hat and suit right out of “Guys and Dolls,” he arrived at a news conference to claim his winnings with both his wife and his girlfriend.”
Wait... what?
Do a thought experiment. Transport 10,000 residents of Harlem, picked at random, to a remote island in the Pacific and leave them there, with the means to survive for about a year and allow them to take about 100 pound of personal effects, but they will be isolated from the outside world. Pick another 10,000 from North Dakota and place them on a similar but separate island.
Come back in a generation, 25 years, and note the demographics and economy. On one island, most of the original settlers will have died off, the population will be distributed towards the young, with lots of children, few of whom survive into adulthood. Literacy among the young will be non-existant, healthcare not even rudimentary, religion reduced to superstition, government will be run by one or more competing strongman tryrants.
On the other, population will be stable, schools, a clinic, elections and governance will have been established. At least two religious communities will exist in harmony, Catholics and Protestants. Religion will be smoothly integrated into education with few objections.
Sadly, America is progressing from the second island to the first.
Sounds like a metaphor for the welfare state. Easy money, easy pain.
If only voters could connect the dots from this.
If I ever won a lottery, I would not give money to anyone that asked for it. I would pick and choose who would receive my money - and often, they would never know where it came from. It seems like the ones most in need and deserving a helping hand never ask for help. THOSE are the people I would help.
Beggars would never see a penny of it. In my place of business, I get beggars in almost every day, all of them have some pitiful story - and all of them feel like victims that are entitled to my money. They are almost all healthy looking and able to do some kind of work - but they never ask for work.
It can be a blessing or a curse, depending on what you do with the money. I always thought I’d like to start a school where children really learn and are taught values.
First time I ever got the gas station beggar:
I’m near Disneyland filling up and a guy comes up and says he drove his family here for vacation in their old truck and the rear end went out. They have no money to fix it and if I could just give him $25 it would really help (this was early 80’s).
I was young and believed him. I also had Washington plates. I too had driven my car there.
I also thought that if he was not prepared to fix something like that he never should have drove out and actions have consequences, so I declined to help. Naturally, as I drove away it hit me that it was a scam. It’s happened several times since then...
After they have heard the responses they can better make the decision on how to respond to requests coming their way.
“It just goes to show that wealth, and poverty, are states of mind.”
To paraphrase the great Dave Ramsey, “being broke is a temporary monetary scenario, while being poor is a state of mind.” Poor people will stay poor because they will continue to behave like poor people. Broke people will eventually move up the economic ladder because they will behave differently.
And the real sad thing is that he, more than most people should have known how to handle money. He had a successful construction business worth something along the lines of 15 million dollars.
You’d almost have to move and change your name if you wanted to see any peace. I’d probably spend like a drunken fool the first year, but I’d settle down after that and figure out how to do some real good with the rest of the money - something that would go on long after I’m gone.
I have some friends and family that I would just have to completely cut out of my life, sad to say. They would be absolute parasites.
I’m familiar with this Whitaker guy’s story, that’s a real tragedy! Apparently, he was a successful contractor before he won the lottery, had all of these plans to go to the Holy Land with his wife (his poor wife) and do all of this good with it. I believe his granddaughter was found under a tarp somewhere where her “friends” left her after she died of a drug overdose. She was just a teen, and her grandfather gave her a house of her own and all kinds of money - she just spent it all on drugs for her and her buddies. They used her up until she was dead. So sad.
Whitaker took to going to strip clubs all the time, carrying HUGE amounts of money with him to stuff in strippers G-strings - what a surprise that they robbed him. A fool and his money are soon parted. I’ve often wondered what happened to his wife.
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