Eivind Ertesvag 
An American lottery winner who won a giant jackpot of £300million says he wishes he had never bought the coupon, or had just torn it up.
Instead of luck and happiness, Andrew ‘Jack’ Whittaker believes the huge lottery win cursed his life with death, divorce and gambling addiction.
Andrew ‘Jack’ Whittaker believes that his life was cursed with death, divorce, and gambling addiction as a result of winning the lottery, instead of bringing him luck and happiness.
His Powerball win is the largest jackpot ever won by a single winner in US lottery history.
On Christmas Eve of 2002, Jack bought the winning ticket when he stopped at a supermarket in Hurricane, Virginia, to grab breakfast and fill up his car.
Jack had led an extremely successful life before his life-altering lottery win. The American businessman, who unfortunately passed away at the age of 72 in 2020, had accumulated assets worth more than £17 million through his construction company.
One would think this meant that Jack was in a better position than most to manage the huge sum of money he won – but that turned out not to be the case.
«Did God’s work with the money»
The first thing he did was to donate 10 percent of his winnings to Christian charities. He then spent £14 million to establish the Jack Whittaker Foundation, which provided free food and clothing to low-income families in Virginia.
According to the British newspaper The Sun, he told Fox News that he was doing God’s work with all this money.
– I help a lot of people, and I plan to help a lot more, he said.
He visited the shop where he purchased the lottery ticket and gave the cashier a check for £44,000, a house for £123,000, and a brand new Jeep Cherokee. He even treated himself to a Lamborghini and drove it around the neighborhood, throwing money out of the window. Unfortunately, less than a year later, his car was broken into, and a suitcase containing over seven million kroner in cash was stolen.
Queue crises
A couple of years after Jack won, he lost his 17-year-old grandson. The girl was found dead on the property of a male friend after being reported missing earlier that month.
Jack began to gamble. In 2005, he was sued by Caesars Atlantic City casino for issuing bad checks to cover gambling losses of more than £200,000. And in 2008, his then wife filed for divorce after 42 years of marriage.
In 2009, his 42-year-old daughter, the mother of his late grandson, was also found dead.
– I lost pretty much everything I had and held dear in my life. Money has never meant anything to me. You must have money to exist in this world, but money does not rule the world. Money is not what makes people happy, he told ABC News, adding that he wished he had never bought that lottery ticket.
