[DeFault User]

there are very few stories on those who won and successfully transitioned from where they were to millionaires. I wonder why?....

Your question intrigued me so I googled up the following link, which has 7 interesting success stories:

http://money.ca.msn.com/savings-debt/gallery/gallery.aspx?cp-documentid=23969513&page=1

[jeffc]

Thanks for the link. I'd rather read success stories than failures. IMHO, the 18 YO who won a (relatively) small amount and parlayed it into successful investments is the winner there.

Not much is said about the other winners before they won. The gym owner seemed to have already been successful prior to winning. Too many people really don't know where to turn or who to trust after they win big, having never had that kind of money before.

And what with the story from the UK about banks not giving people their money back without a "good reason" makes me trust banks even less (if that's possible), so storing tens of millions in a bank even for a short while doesn't seem like much of an option these days.

What's a safer investment than multi-year jumbo CD's? Not much of an investor, so IDK.

[boop]

Great link.

It seems like people who had common sense before winning kept doing things that made common sense.

I love the story of the young man who worked at McDonalds his whole life and when he won $1 million, he bought a Subway franchise. It was his dream, and it came true.

And he manages it.

Great happy ending.

I could never figure Jack Whittaker.

he was already really rich when he won the $330 million, and was obviously no dummy before winning, but became stupid afterwards.

WTF did he take a suitcase to a strip club, filled with $500K? And it got stolen out of his car. Then he did it AGAIN.

Plus he lost his granddaughter to a drug overdose.

That was just terribly sad.