The Lotter – Online Lottery Tickets Agent »
Donald Damon, who was recently laid off his trucking job due to his age, took home a $96.6 million Powerball Lottery jackpot. His wife Kathleen, who had to keep three jobs to support them, doesn’t have to work again, well not for money, that’s a sure thing. She worked at a senior’s center, a medical office and a beauty salon after her husband was fired.
Since Mr. Damon’s daughter told him that someone in Great Bend, Kansas won the Powerball Lottery, he asked her to check the winning numbers for him. He was stunned to discover that his lottery ticket won $96.6 million. Now Mr. Damon aims to pay off his debts and live happily ever after with his wife.
William Morris, Jr. walked into the Fruitland Exxon one July morning with just $10 in his pocket. He walked out with a $50,000 winning scratch-off. “I hesitated to buy the ticket for the lotto. It was the funniest feeling going in with all I had.”
The 54-year-old from Salisbury said he plays scratch-offs every chance he gets. He came to Lottery Headquarters Monday afternoon, still shaking. “I am still jittery,” he said. “I’ve worked for many years and have never seen a check like that!”
William plans to share his winnings with family and friends. “My goal in life is to help people,” he said. “I’ve needed help, so I know what it is like to be in need.”
You to can have a chance of scoring all the California lottery winning numbers just by buying a lottery ticket online.
This is the kind of lottery winner story we love to hear and love to share with our readers. Often the kind of story you read of in America, but every now and again a great one pops up over the Atlantic. In the UK you can had to a McDonald’s fast food outlet in Cardiff, Wales, UK and meet you’re very own lotto jackpot millionaire. Luke Pittard won 1.3 million pounds and celebrated in the usual fashion; he bought a new home and spent a fortune on a dream wedding and honeymoon holiday in the Canary Islands.
After the thrill of winning and novelty of the cash wore off Luke realized that he really missed the lifestyle and simplicity of his old job. So he asked to go back and couldn’t be happier, getting up at the crack of dawn to flip burgers for £5.85 an hour. “They all think I’m a bit mad but I tell them there’s more to life than money,” he said. “I loved working at McDonald’s before I became a millionaire and I’m really enjoying being back there again.”
But 18 months later, the novelty of early retirement wore off. “Lots of my old McDonald’s workmates came to our wedding and I had kept in touch with them all the time, so I just thought: ‘Why not go back?’” said Mr Pittard.
In Canada Lottery life it was a case of good and bad news for Barry Shell. The good news was when he discovered that he’d won over $4 million in the lotto, the bad news was that by the end of the day he’d ended up arrested and placed in jail. Barry Shell, from Brampton, Ontario in Canada chose to pick up his winning check for $4,377,298, which was the jackpot prize in the July 18 draw for the Lotto 6/49.
“I went to the store and checked my ticket on the self-serve ticket checker,” Shell was quoted as saying in a news release from the Ontario Loterie and Gaming Corporation. “As soon as I saw how much I had won, I grabbed a pen and signed my ticket.”
On Monday afternoon, a happy and joyous Barry Shell was published in a photo holding up his winning check outside the OLG headquarters on Dundas Street West in Toronto. After the photo was taken he walked away from the building and straight into the waiting arms of the local Peel Police officers. Shell was apparantly wanted by police on a six-year-old charge for failing to appear in court in relation to a theft of $5,000 and being in possession of property obtained through crime.
According to a spokesman for the OLG, every lottery winner undergoes a security check, and if anything is turned up during the course of the investigation the matter is turned over to the Ontario Provincial Police. Shell, 45, was held overnight and appeared in court on Tuesday. He has been charged and released.
The news release said Shell “has no immediate plans for the windfall.”
Back in the USA on May 9, 2000, Larry and Nancy Ross of Shelby Township, Michigan, won part of the $363 million Big Game lottery jackpot, to date this payout is the biggest in the history of the lottery in North America.
The Big Game which is now known as the Mega Millions, is a multi-state lottery game which can be entered in the states of; Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia. Tickets for the lotto cost $1. On top of that there are an additional 8 ways to win a jackpot including a range of cash prizes ranging from $1 to $150,000.
“We still can’t believe we won!” said Larry of his family’s unbelievable good fortune as they claimed the prize on May 12, 2000. “The whole thing is overwhelming and we are still adjusting to the shock. We saw the clerk who had sold us the ticket on TV. We re-checked the ticket and found we had the winner!”
After using the lottery checker The Ross family decided to cash in their $181.5 million share of the jackpot prize in a single lump-sum payment which worked out as approximately $90 million (after taxes have been deducted).
Over in the USA, it was quite literally the luck of the draw for Jeff Wilson of Kings Mountain. He had no idea when his father showed him a bunch of recently bought Powerball Lotto tickets that the ticket he chose would wind up making him a millionaire. His father showed him a bunch of tickets and told him to choose one for himself!
Across the state where the ticket was bought, people have been wondering who was holding the $88.1 million winning Powerball ticket. Jeff Wilson and his family came to the North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) headquarters to collect their winning and were simultaneously introduced to the public and media who were waiting outside.
Jeff said that the ticket was a Quick Pick (computer generated) ticket and the numbers were drawn in the June 20 Powerball drawing. The jackpot for the drawing was $88.1 million.
Instead of spreading the payout of the super lotto winnings over a period of time he chose to take the entire sum as a cash lump sum payment in the region of $42.4 million after taxes and costs. Jeff says that he’s not sure exactly what he will do with all the money but was sure he wanted to have it all at once so he could better manage his financial future.
“I didn’t believe my dad when he told me that I had won and I think I’m still in disbelief. Maybe I’ll buy a house or a car. The money will also be very useful for when I go to graduate school in the fall of this year.
The ticket was bought at the Petro Express on Cleveland Avenue in Kings Mountain.
In the UK, the Newton Family from Dartford in Kent (South Coast of England) are joyous after winning the jackpot Lottery Rollover on Wednesday 8th July 2009. The family which consists of the parents and 3 children are part of a family syndicate and will be sharing the £7,985,672 jackpot between them.
The father, Ted Newton is a retired industry foreman. He said he’s been buying lottery tickets for the family syndicate for every Saturday night draw since The National Lottery Results show started back in 1994. This week for the Wednesday draw he realized it was a huge rollover and so decided to break with tradition and enter the Lucky Dip® using 5 lines. Once of these lucky dip lines came up perfectly for the now celebrating Newton family.
The family have a number of ambitious plans to enjoy their winnings. First and foremost they have already booked and extravagant holiday with many more in the offing. Mum, Marilyn said, “We have been on a couple of cruises but I don’t like flying far, perhaps if we upgrade to first it will be a little easier. Ted has always wanted to see the northern lights so we’ll probably arrange that. Also I have always wanted to be able to walk into a shop and buy something without looking at the price, I should be able to do that too now.”
Our first August lottery winner story for August is about Brian and Joan Caswell from Bolton in the UK who recently moved into third place in The National Lottery Rich List after winning an amazing £24,951,269.40. They banked half of the jackpot in the Euromillion draw on Friday June 12th, 2009.
“When he scanned the ticket his mouth dropped open and he went a little ashen. He called for his boss to verify the numbers and told me to contact Camelot. I didn’t have my glasses so couldn’t even read the numbers on the ticket he gave me, so I headed home to get it into focus.”
Brian Caswell made his first purchase which was a brand new Range Rover that he’d had his eye on for a years but knew could never afford onhis normal salary. After that purchase and paying of the mortgage on the family house Brian and his wife plan to travel, they say this is now the focus of their thoughts and will be the bulk of their expenditure.
I’m saving some of my best tips for the end of the month, this one is about what to do when you win the lottery, something we all want to experience.
- Do not leave your winnings in the hands of friends or family. Never place your trust in amateurs who don’t have the expertise necessary to handle a million dollars. You think you trust them as a friend but that simply means they are qualified to be your friend, not financial adviser.
- Hire a professional financial consultant with experience in dealing with lottery winners (believe it or not there are plenty out there). Ensure you have a reputable tax accountant and an lawyer on your new payroll.
- Redundancy is critical (not meaning job redundancy, but people backup). Never trust just one person with your entire future. Ensure you have a team of people who’re experts in their field who can be coordinated to handle your finances in case something happens.
More budgeting tips from a guest writer:
Never dip into your savings in the hope of winning the lottery. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. Spending your life savings won’t help you if you lose it all. Only spend what you can afford to lose.
When you buy one lottery ticket, your odds of winning go from zero to one-in-eighteen million or so. When you buy two lottery tickets, your odds of winning go from one-in-eighteen million to two-in-eighteen million. The numbers improve, but you need to buy literally thousands to see a significant increase in your chances.
By all means, get in the game. But remember that buying a hundred tickets per week doesn’t increase your odds of winning that much. Bear in mind the more tickets you buy the more chance your sharing your list of numbers with someone else.
So, in short, the important budgeting tip here, is spend only what you can afford to spend and only on the numbers you really want to play.
