A Tax on the Poor- The Lotto and the Surprisingly Common Sad Aftermath of Winning

hello I'm Simon Whistler you're watching the today I found our YouTube channel bend in the video today we're looking at the lottery and be surprisingly common sad after massive winning it's been called a voluntary tax on the poor and the undereducated with people spending a whopping sixty billion dollars a year on it in the United States alone most of these lottery tickets are purchased by low-income individuals all total about 20% of Americans play the lottery despite the high number of lotto tickets purchased annually when playing the lottery in all of its forms you'll win an average of just 53 cents for every $1 you spend making is one of the lowest return rates of any form of commercial gambling and thus it's extremely profitable for the various government bodies who run the lotteries according to a study by Emily Hayes Lee at all they can get away with this low return rate by pricing the tickets so cheap compared to the potential payoff the people just keep coming back for more low-income people among other reasons according to the study's findings were significantly likely to play as they perceive their own wealth to be lower than average thus they attempt a low-cost way the individual ticket wise to rectify the issue even though they know the chances of it working out are incredibly low now if they added up all of the lining they spent in lottery tickets overtime and had to pay at all at once they'd probably not be nearly as willing to play the most startling number in all of this is that those who make thirteen thousand dollars per year or less in the United States on average spend about five percent of their gross annual earnings on lottery tickets and winning the lottery isn't apparently all it's cracked up to be either there was a recent study done by mark Hoekstra from the University of Pittsburgh covering 1900 Florida lottery winners who won from 50 to 150 thousand dollars according to this study the group was significantly more likely to go bankrupt within five years than small-time lottery winners who won under $10,000 they were also twice as likely to go bankrupt over the normal population just as significant before winning these 50 to 150 thousand lotto winners were no more or less likely to go bankrupt than the general populace the acts of winning itself doubled their chances of going bankrupt what's even more surprising is that in the vast majority of these cases the 50 to 150 thousand dollars was significantly more than the total deaths that were held by the winners of the date of winning yet instead of just paying off their debts most simply blew the money and then often acquired heir to the faster rate once the money ran out according to wealth counselor sighs for Berk an estimated one-third of all big-ticket lottery winners and others who suddenly come into wealth will file for bankruptcy within five years of receiving this cash influx that says so many people who come into wealth suddenly whether they win the lottery receive an insurance settlements or an unexpected inheritance if they have not acquired good money skills prior to this windfall often they struggle and make poor choices if someone is in trouble financially if they're spending more than they're making or are relying emotionally on the lottery to bail them out then that's a big problem surprisingly those who get the money then choose to starve their dream business rather than just blow the money these people aren't generally no better off than those who just spend money on hookers and blow she states they usually have no idea how to run a business and just throwing money at any problem that comes up rather than develop a business that can potentially be profitable someday for example can crocks mom who was a machinist 21 1 million dollars rather than blow it on nothing like so many others he did the sensible thing and started a business a car dealership within 5 years he had to file for bankruptcy then to his back working as a machinist even for those who keep their head down so to speak and use the money wisely there's still some negatives that come with it 53 year old Steve Grainger in 2009 won just $900,000 receiving 600 thousand dollars after taxes despite the relatively modest winnings compared to some law so payouts which he and his wife simply put away for retirement the couple began to be met with resentments from those they knew and started hearing things like there goes the lottery people said in spite there was also a phase where random strangers kept grabbing him and his wife for luck this sort of thing wasn't just limited to the Granger's the son of Billy Bob Harold your hair more about that sad story in a moment then status first of all we have to change our phone number about 7 times it was supposed to be unlisted but then someone would call people things have no trouble getting the number we also got a mountain of mail worse they were bombarded with business opportunities from random entities there were also letters from individuals with sob stories asking able to send them money for instance things like people would tell you that their daughter was dying and couldn't we just send the checks I live there tell you their life story and you'd like to believe them that you just can't said Ben they also had numerous people driving by and knocking at their door for a similar purpose one woman grabbed Harold's wife Barbara after spending five hundred dollars on lottery tickets wore masks she told Barbara that if she lost on those tickets with their luck not working out for her but she'd better respond her the money this is all not to mention the occasional problems suffered by some lottery winners where people come out of the Woodworks to try and find an excuse to sue them then of course besides such minor drawbacks there are the train wrecks who's winning the lottery rather than make their lives better made them demonstrably worse the following are just a few of many such stories number 1 Jack Whittaker unlike everyone else on this list Whittaker was already wealthy when he won three hundred and fourteen point nine million dollars in 2002 this is three hundred and ninety million dollars today is now less at the time with about seventeen million dollars he owned a contracting firm he soon was robbed twice for five hundred forty five thousand dollars in the next time for two hundred thousand dollars there was another plan by two employees of a strip club be frequented the same club he kept getting robbed out to drug him and then robbed him that way Whittaker also claims a group of thieves managed to successfully cash twelve forged checks at twelve different branches of his bank pulling money from his account he was also sued by Caesar Atlantic City casino wisdom claiming that he bounced 1.5 million dollars in checks while gambling that he counter sued them claiming that the 1.5 million dollars was supposed to come out of the money they owed him for developing a slot machine that they use he was also sued by various other people trying to get money out of him whether legitimately or not his granddaughter's boyfriend was found dead in Whitaker's home overdosed on oxycodone methadone meperidine and cocaine a few months later his granddaughter Brandi Bragg herself overdosed and died found eleven days after she went missing wrapped in a plastic talk with her body dumped despite this no one was charged with any crime something Whittaker was furious about with the police go after whoever killed my granddaughter with as much zealous as these bottles are trying to convict me of something I didn't do referring to his DUI in 2009 his daughter the mother of his granddaughter that was either killed or overdosed was found dead at the age of 42 said Whittaker of winning one of the biggest lottery prizes in history I wish had torn that ticket up number two Billy Bob Harrell heroin 131 million dollars in 1997 which is 40 three million dollars today taking me 25 annual installments rather than the lump sum at the time he was working at the Home Depot after being laid off from a couple of other jobs in the previous few years he quickly bought himself a ranch six other homes for his family and several new cars after the initial splurge she spent very little on himself and simply had his checkbook out and ready for anyone who contacted him saying they needed money this became problematic because he started getting more requests than he could afford the sob stories people were telling him he was believin unlike the rest to his family and his supposedly tore him up inside according to his son he even lost 50 pounds to 20 to 170 apparently from stress his wife barbara Jean soon divorced him as funds became tight he became involved with the taxes company the promised him a 2.25 million dollar payout if it sign over ten years of his winnings which is about 12 million dollars this is illegal under Texas tour and a horrible deal to boot but despite everyone including his financial adviser advising and against it he was determined to go through with it when asked why he stated and that he was in so deep he figured if he backed out there just sue him for the money anyways he signed the deal 20 months after winning the lottery he attempted to reconcile with his wife but she refused his son then drove to his mother's house and found his father nature's and having shot himself in the chest with his shotgun there was a note that read I don't want this I just wanted you there was no sign of the 2.5 million dollars had traded the twelve million dollars worth of installments for and no money at all available Spaeth state taxes his once happy family was broken and the grandparents were reportedly feuding with the kids convinced it wasn't suicide but murder despite all the evidence to the contrary before his death he told his financial advisor winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me number three William Budd post the third but one sixteen point two million dollars in 1988 which is about thirty million dollars today after winning his ex-girlfriend sued in claiming she deserved a share of the winnings she won his own brother hired someone to kill him and his wife no doubt hoping to be able to inherit some of the winnings William quickly blew through the money buying houses in investing in various business ventures proposed in read people probably scamming him cars and other such things for himself and his family and friends who incessantly bugged him the money within one year of winning sixteen point two million dollars he was 1 million dollars in debt than file to bankruptcy and started living on food damn send a four hundred and fifty dollar social security step end he died in 2006 at the age of 66 instead of winning the lotto I wish it never happens it was totally a nightmare number four Victoria Szell Szell won an 11 million dollar Powerball jackpot in 2001 which is about 14 million dollars today within four years the money was gone and zel ended up in prison after taking drugs and getting drunk and deciding to drive her car the resulting car accident which ensued resulted in the death of one and another person being paralyzed number 5 Michael Carroll Carroll won nine point seven million pounds in 2002 which is about 15 point 4 million u.s. dollars then and about 19 million dollars today when he showed up to collect his winnings he was wearing an electronic offender's tag at the time he was unemployed and didn't even have a bank account despite his winnings he was turned away from the banks a lottery recommended he open an account with due to his criminal record he was seen blackmailed out of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars by people threatening his family if he wouldn't pay them he also gave his mother and sister each 1 million dollars most of the money though he spent himself he bought 4 houses a vacation home in Spain two Mercedes and two BMWs and spent many thousands on jewelry drugs gambling and prostitutes Carol the sentence to 240 hours of community service after catapulting steel balls at various cars and shops and causing severe damage to them he was later sentenced to nine months in prison for a public brawl if this sound severe it should be noted that he had 42 previous criminal offences within 18 months had spent the vast majority of his winnings sorbets about five hundred thousand pounds within four years he was forced to start taking out loans to be able to keep up his main home when he finally declares bankruptcy in 2010 his 340 thousand pound mansion that had put another four hundred thousand pounds into ended up selling for just one hundred and forty two thousand pounds because of how much damage had done to it at that point he was living off the UK equivalent of welfare and one year later tried to kill himself twice the first time he was rescued by a friend as he was hanging himself the second time medics were called in after it tried to slice his throat with a knife number 6 Willie hurt in 1989 hut-one 3.1 million dollars which is 5.1 million dollars today this was the start of his problems within just two years he ended up divorced was charged with attempted murder lost custody of his kids developed a cocaine addiction it had spent his entire winnings number seven and Mullins Mullins won 4.2 million dollars in 1993 which is 6.4 million dollars today she did the smart thing for those who don't know how to manage money anyway and went with a yearly payout but then she did the stupid thing and blew annual winnings and then started borrowing against her future winnings finally she was so in debt that she switched to the lump sum payout the thing is she didn't use that money to pay off her debts when the loan company came after her for the amount she owed they found she didn't have any money nor any significant assets to show for her winnings she had simply blown it all number 8 Abraham Shakespeare Shakespeare who was near illiterate and dropped out of school in the seventh grade 131 million dollars in 2006 like so many others he didn't spend much on himself he just bought himself a 1 million dollar home in this an Altima and a Rolex watch beyond that he ended up blowing much of his money on family and friends eventually he wised up stating I'd have been better off broke I thought all these people and my friends but then I realized all they want is just money three years later he suddenly disappeared one year after this disappearance his body was found he was murdered by one of these people who pretended to be his friend the murderer is allegedly Doris Donegan more orid used a variety of means to get Shakespeare to give her millions she even started a business with him that she was going to run after it was founded in the bank council she would 3 1 million dollars and went on vacation in the interim between his disappearance and his body being discovered his family at first thought had just become fed up with the constant stream of people begging for money and just left to start a new life in the end they began to grow suspicious of Moore's apparent attempts to make everyone sing Shakespeare was still around such as texting people from his phone this was a major red flag because he was nearly illiterate she was also known to pay people to say that they'd seen him including offering $200,000 to Shakespeare's son to tell detectives that had seen his father recently she even attempted to pay someone $50,000 to say then murdered him she was finally arrested and the body found after attempting to pay someone to move the corpse investigators later reveals completely unrelated to any of this more previously attempted to say that her car was stolen and she was kidnapped and raped in the process she even takes her own risks threw herself from someone's car and took a rape exam why did she do any of this because she was behind on payments for a car and he was going to get repossessed this was her way of trying to get to keep her spying claiming it was stolen number 9 Jeffrey Dampier Dampier 120 million dollars in 1996 which is about 28 million dollars today unlike many on this list he actually handled things so came so he did do the common thing of spreading his wealth around buying various things family and friends like houses cars and the like he then founded a gourmet popcorn store Cassy's gourmet popcorn which surprisingly was quite profitable and on top of all that allowed him to give jobs to certain family and friends nine years after winning he was doing quite well so what went wrong well his sister-in-law Victoria Jackson who had previously been having an affair with when she was 15 and he was 32 she was also 15 when she found her father having hanged himself called him out to her apartment when he arrived her boyfriend Nathaniel Jackson pulled the gun on him they tied him as driven out of town and then Victoria shot the 39 year-old Dampier in the head Nathaniel Jackson stages it wasn't about getting money you killed the goose and no more goals and eggs it was about resentment over dampier's easy fortune and success number 10 Evelyn Adams defying all odds Adams not only won the law so once but twice in back-to-back years 1985 and 1986 all total she won 5.4 million dollars which is about eleven million dollars today she quickly lost all of her money mostly by giving it away and gambling she now lives in a trailer park in poverty she stated in an interview everybody wanted my money everybody had their hand out I never learned one simple word in the English language no I wish I had the chance to do it all over again be much smarter about it now number 11 Callie Rogers Rogers was a 16 year old high school dropout living in Authority gap when she won a one-point 875 million pounds payouts which is about three million dollars today over the next few years she blew about two hundred fifty thousand pounds four hundred thousand dollars on cocaine shopping and spending money on friends she also attempted to kill herself three times the last time by slashing her wrists her children were taken away from her further she was arrested after police raided her and her boyfriend's home and found several thousand dollars worth of cocaine which her boyfriend was apparently dealing buy last report in 2009 she had been off cocaine to three years gotten her two children back got a job as a maid and was living with her mother she still actually had about $40,000 of her original winnings at that point unlike pretty much everyone else on this list her tail turned out surprisingly well relatively speaking she said in a recent interview I honestly wish I'd never won the lottery money and knowing what I know now I should have just given it all back to them all their money has brought me is heartache and finally becoming the woman I want to be and it's only after I've spent most of my fortune that this has finally happened Janet Leigh Leigh 180 million dollars in 1993 which is about twenty eight million dollars today she managed to hold out for eight years but like so many others before her she had to file bankruptcy at the time with reportedly just $700 left in their bank accounts and debts mounting so I really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already for brand new videos just like this every day of the week also over there on the right a couple of other videos that you might enjoy if you enjoyed this one and thank you for watching

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 1,090,408

Rating: 4.9017162 out of 5

Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know, Tax, Lotto, Lottery Tax, Lotteries, Jack Whittaker, Billy Bob Harrell, William “Bud” Post III, Victoria Zell, Michael Carroll, Willie Hurt, Suzanne Mullins, Abraham Shakespeare, Jeffrey Dampier, Evelyn Adams, Callie Rogers

Id: E-G1uXNeFLs

Length: 16min 16sec (976 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2017