Winning the lottery can be a life-changing event, but it doesn’t always guarantee a happy ending. Some lottery winners have ended up losing everything due to poor financial decisions.
One example is Evelyn Marie Adams, who won $5.4 million in the New Jersey lottery in 1985 and 1986. She lost it all to excessive gambling and by 2012, she had admitted in an interview with The New York Post that she was broke.
In 1990, Rhoda and Alex Toth won a $13 million lottery prize. Despite accepting payments of $666,666 over 20 years, they filed for bankruptcy in 2006. They squandered most of their fortune on legal expenses from family conflicts and a lavish lifestyle in Las Vegas. The couple faced tax evasion charges, with Rhoda being fined $1.1 million and sentenced to two years in prison.
Janite Lee won an $18 million lottery jackpot and generously donated a large portion of her winnings to the Democratic National Committee and individual political candidates as well as to Washington University, including their law school. However, she lost $350,000 through gambling and by 2001, she was left with only $700 from her once multi-million dollar fortune.
