Farrell Lavallee - Insurance Company Wants His Lottery Money

This is Farrell Lavallee. Apparently, he has a habit of crashing cars, even cars that he doesn't own.

In May of 2000, Farrell crashed a pickup truck that he didn't own. In October of the same year, he stole a car and mangled it - He plead guilty to theft for this one.

Now, here's a little something you may not know about insurance - If you take someone's car without permission (Or steal it) and, subsequently, get into an accident, you're not covered. Shocker, isn't it? In most jurisdictions, the owner of the car would be compensated by the insurance company, but then the insurance company would then subrogate against the guilty party to try to recover their money.

So, the insurance company had been trying to recover their money for years, unsuccessfully. See, Farrell Lavallee had been in and out of jail so many times since then that it was too hard to get anything from him. Charges against him over the years included possession of stolen property, assaulting police officer, credit card fraud, theft, and multiple bail and parole violations.

The insurance company almost gave up... That is, until a sharp-eyed employee at the insurance company noticed that Farrell Lavallee won the lottery in July of 2011. Yep, he won $1 million from a Manitoba instant scratch game. Now Farrell had the funds to pay up and the insurance company wanted that lottery money, so they quickly zoomed in and got it.

The insurance company's original claim for the damages for the two accidents in 2000 were $31,419. In November of 2011, just a few months after winning the lottery, Farrell Lavallee settled his debt with a payment of $41,462, the difference from the original claim being interest charges.

On a side note, is that a coffee mug in Farrell's hand that says "scratch & win"? I'm guessing that if you win the lottery in Manitoba, you also get a free coffee mug. Wow, a million dollars AND a mug... Nice!

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Steven Lloyd - Powerball Winner Wants Privacy

With all of the attention being given to the huge $254 million Connecticut Powerball winners, who claimed their prize this week, it's easy to skip over another big Powerball winner - Steven Lloyd. This week, Steven claimed a Powerball jackpot worth $37,622,580. On any other week, this would be big news. But this week, it's overshadowed by the Connecticut guys. That may be a good thing because Steven is a private person; he just wants privacy.

Steven is on the right, being given his ceremonial check from a Pennsylvania Lottery spokesperson.

"It's still a shock. Nothing about this is normal. Your head's just spinning about the next move and the what the next step should be," Steven Lloyd said about his big win. "I don't want to change. But it's naive to think it's going to stay the same. There is going to be a new normal."

He also went on to say, "I'm very private. I have a small circle of friends." With that, he explained that he wanted to avoid some of the pitfalls that comes with fortune and notoriety. Readers of this website must surely know of these pitfalls; I've written about people that have succumbed to them, including Keith Bryce, who couldn't say no to people asking for money. I'd bet that Steven Lloyd will do a better job of managing the notoriety.

To mitigate the notoriety and manage his privacy, Steven Lloyd had already deactivated his Facebook account and has been trying to remove information about himself from the internet. He has also sought advice from accountants, lawyers, and financial planners.

With that being said, Steven also realizes that he was very fortunate to win the lottery. So he plans on helping his family, close friends, and community. "I think I'll be buying dinner for everyone for the rest of my life," he joked. "No one's ever going to pick up the tab with me."

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Delma Kinney - Two Times Lucky

You'd love to get lucky with the lottery just once, wouldn't you? You probably can't even imagine how it feels to get lucky twice, right?

Perhaps you should ask Delma Kinney how it feels. He knows the feeling. That's because he's two times lucky with the lottery.

Delma Kinney won $1 million on an instant scratch-off game in 2008. Then in November of 2011, it happened again - Another million dollar win. That's a total of $2 million worth of scratch-off wins!

Delma is a single father of three. With his first win in 2008, he put away some money for his kids college funds. With his recent win, he plans on giving some money to charity.

Recently, Delma had a cold. That's when he went out to the pharmacy to buy some cold medication. While there, he bought a scratch-off game from Georgia Lottery called Super Millions. He scratched the ticket while back in the car and, as soon as he saw the matching numbers, he knew that he was a big winner. Normally, people that win the lottery experience shock, but not Delma; he'd already experienced that once before. This time, it was just par-for-the-course. Multiple lottery winners just get used to winning, you now?

Delma Kinney won his most recent million dollars on a Georgia Lottery scratch-off game called Super Millions. Super Millions cost $20 to play and offers a top prize of $5 million. The $1 million that Delma won is actually the fifth prize in the game because the game also offers prizes of $2 million, $3 million, and $4 million. The odds of winning any of the million dollar plus prizes are approximately 1-in-1-million.

At the time of his win, the two times lucky man was 50-years-old and living in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Matthew Martinez - Florida Gold Rush Tripler Winner

Matthew Martinez looks like a happy guy. That's him standing between his brother and his sister.

He has every right to be happy. You'd be happy too if you won what Matthew won - $3 million!

Matthew Martinez won $3 million in November of 2011 playing Florida Lottery's Gold Rush Tripler instant scratch game.

The Gold Rush Tripler game costs $20 to play. It offers prizes ranging from $20 to $3 million. The odds of winning any prize in the game are approximately 1-in-2.95, while the odds of winning the game's top prize of $3 million are approximately 1-in-3.8-million.

On a side note, I would recommend against spending $20 on a single Gold Rush Tripler game. If you live in Florida and have an extra $20 to spend on lottery tickets, go with 20 lines of Florida Lotto instead. With 20 Florida Lotto tickets, you're odds of winning the jackpot would be about 1-in-1.15-million. Those are better odds than buying just one Gold Rush Tripler game and the Florida Lotto jackpot is bigger too.

At the time of his win, Matthew Martinez lived in Belle Glade, Florida, which is on Lake Okeechobee.

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Wayne Hughes' Sentimental Lottery Numbers

This is a picture of Wayne Hughes, a lottery winner that's showing off his tattoo.

Why would anyone care about Wayne's tattoo? Well, before I answer, let me ask you a question - If you won the lottery, would your winning lottery numbers be sentimental to you? Perhaps they would. But would they be sentimental enough to tattoo them on your shoulder? That might be taking it too far.

That's how far Wayne Hughes took it; he won £1,117,779 ($1,731,301 USD) in the lottery and the first thing he did was have the date of the win and the winning numbers tattooed on his left shoulder - Saturday August 7 2010 - 13, 16, 22, 25, 31 and 39. This just goes to show how excited people get about the lottery!

It's been more than a year since Wayne won the lottery. So, what's this lottery winner up to these days? Wild parties... Sex with underage girls (Ahem, allegedly).

After winning the lottery, Waynes Hughes moved out of his rented apartment and bought a house in Bangor, England. A neighbor of his claimed that there had been some wild parties at his house since he moved in. And, just recently, that same neighbor noticed a couple of police cars parked outside of the house.

Why were the police at his house? He was being questioned over claims a child under the age of 16 was incited to carry out sexual activity. I could just picture it now... Hey baby, wanna touch my lottery numbers. Ahh, the crazy lives of lottery winners.

Wayne was arrested, charged, and released on bail.

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$254 Million Powerball Winners From Greenwich Connecticut

The November 2, 2011 Powerball jackpot was $254.2 Million. The winning ticket was sold in Connecticut. Today the winners stepped forward to claim their prize.

The winners are pictured here. They are, from left to right, Tim Davidson, Greg Skidmore, and Brandon Lacoff.

At today's news conference, not much was said about what the winners planned to do with the money or their relationship with eachother. They did say, however that a lot of the money will be going to charity.

What we do know about the three is that they work at Belpointe, a wealth management company in Greenwich, Connecticut that provides investment advice, mainly to wealthy people. Tim Davidson is a senior portfolio manager at the company, while Brandon Lacoff is a managing director, and Greg Skidmore is the president.

The three Powerball winners were likely very well off prior to winning the lottery. We don't usually see wealthy people winning the lottery which makes this kind of weird. I think there will be a lot of people saying that the money should have gone to a more deserving winner (Meaning someone that needed the money more). People can think what they want, but it doesn't really matter; the lottery doesn't discriminate, everyone has an equal chance of winning, whether they are rich or poor.

Another interesting twist to this story is where the winners are from. The town of Greenwhich, Connecticut is one of the most affluent communities in The United States. It was ranked by Money Magazine in 2005 as having the highest median household income in the country, at $112,494 per year. That's more than double the rest of the country, which is around $50,000. looks like Greenwich, Connecticut is about to become a lot more affluent!

Congratulations to the three newest Powerball winners. I'm sure they'll know what to do with the money, seeing as what they do for a living is advise other wealthy people what they should do with their money!

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How To Blow Your Lottery Money Fast

How fast do you think you can blow your lottery money? Well, if you're anything like Karen Flook, who is pictured here, you can blow it really fast - It could all be gone in just 12 months!

12 months, that's it? Yep. See, if you can't blow your lottery money in 12 months, you're just not trying hard enough. You need to follow Karen's example.

I'll tell you how Karen was able to do it. First off, she won £130,000 in the lottery ($200,694 USD). If you think it's hard to spend that much money in just twelve months, try breaking it down. For example, that's just $16,725 of spending per month, or $550 of spending per day. See, it sounds much easier when you break it down, doesn't it? I know I can blow $550 a day.

Next you need to think of some big ticket items to spend your money on. Here's some of the things that Karen Flook spent her money on:

• Boob jobs
• Cartier watch
• Expensive jewelry
• Lavish clothing shopping sprees
• Liposuction
• Lip injections
• Two Mercedes ( She originally bought one after winning the lottery, then replaced it for a better one a few months later)

Those are the types of things that you can blow your lottery money on and it will be gone within 12 months, guaranteed!

As a special bonus, if you keep on spending, even after you've blown your lottery money, you can actually be further in debt. That's what Karen did - She kept on spending (I guess spending becomes habit-forming after you do it a while).

"After that I was getting into more debt — I'd got into the spending habit and there was no stopping me. Credit cards, bank loans, £10,000 here, £6,000 there, it was madness," Karen said. "It got to the point where I couldn't pay the mortgage, couldn't pay the bills, the gas boiler broke down and I'd had enough."

Karen seems like an awesome fun girl, though. Good for her for having some fun with the money!

There you have it, now you know how to blow your lottery money... fast.

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$30 Million Lotto 649 Winners - 7 Teachers From Red Deer College

The bad thing about playing the lottery with a group is that, if you win, you have to split the prize. Splitting the prize, however, is a good thing when you're splitting it with your close friends.

Pictured here are 7 friends, all teachers at Red Deer College in Alberta, Canada. They are Jim Pollard, Dean Wigmore, Robert Baumbach, Brian Berge, Brian Stephenson, Ralph Hunter and Len Aucoin. Aside from teaching at the same college, they're all close friends. So close, in fact, that they get together every Sunday (A non-school day) for coffee at the local A&W. Oh ya, they also play the lottery together!

They play the lottery together and they won together. The 7 teachers won a $30 million Lotto 649 prize in November of 2011. They also won an additional $10 on a separate line in the same draw, for a total of $30,000,010. That works out to $4,285,157 each! Of course, they don't mind splitting the money because they are close friends, after all!

Each of the friends now have enough money to retire on. However, all seven of them are dedicated teachers at Red Deer College and, so, plan to at least finish the current school year. They don't want to just give up on their students, which is very noble of them.

After the current school year, they all have different plans. Some plan to retire, some don't. Jim Pollard, for example, said that he intended to keep teaching at the college for another six years, which would coincide with his youngest son finishing school. Brian Stephenson, however, bet Jim a million dollars that he won't last that long (Usually when someone says "I'll bet you a million dollars that..." we all know it's considered a joke. However, Brian actually has the money to back up the bet; Jim should take him up on it!).

The group of 7 had been playing the lottery together for many years. On an interesting side note, many other players have come and gone from the group. Boy, do they ever wish they didn't now! One such person is a man named Dave Johnston, also a teacher at Red Deer College. He pulled out over a year ago. He said that he kept putting money into the pool every week and they never won a big prize. He decided that winning the jackpot would never happened, so he pulled out. Then it happened! I'd hate to be in his shoes now; that must feel like crap!

None of the 7 winners have any concrete plans for the money yet, but they realize that it provides them with many more options. "You never thought you could buy a Porsche 911 Turbo S, Stephenson said. "I really don't think any of us would, because we're fairly conservative people. But those are the kind of options we have available to (us) now. You sort of realize that, so it opens a lot of doors."

Enjoy the $30 million guys!

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Chris Brown - New Hampshire Weekly Grand Extra Winner

Chris Brown is pictured here. He's the one on the right accepting a big check from New Hampshire Lottery director, Charlie McIntyre. Chris won $1000 a week for the next 20 years playing the Weekly Grand Extra game.

Chris had the option of choosing $1000 a week for twenty years or a $600,000 lump sum payment. Seeing as he is 72-years-old, I would have thought that he would have choosen the lump sum payment, but he didn't; Chris took the weekly payment option.

When I wrote about, Robert Skipper, a previous winner of a cash for life type of game, I assumed that elderly winners of these types of games should always choose the lump sum option. I reasoned that elderly winners might not have the years left in their lives to enjoy the income stream. That may be true for some people, but not Chris Brown - He's got dozens of years left to live!

Chris Brown's income stream from the Weekly Grand Extra game will continue until he's 92 years old. But he's got longevity in his genes. Both his grandmother mother and great aunt lived to be 102 years-old, so he expects to live way past the time that the income stream ends. That's awesome!

At age 72, Chris was retired and living on a pension and old age security. He was doing OK, financially, but with the extra $1000 a week for the next 20 years, he says he'll be doing more than OK; it will really take the strain away and allow him to buy some things he otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford to buy.

What types of things could Chris Brown afford to buy now? Well, a Mazda Miata for start. That was his first purchase after winning the lottery. Chris said that he used to have a Miata and enjoyed cruising with the top down. So he got another one. He sounds like such a cool guy!

The odds of winning the $1000 a week for life in the Weekly Grand Extra game from New Hampshire lottery are approximately 1-in-1.8-million.

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Rebecca Leyba Owes Her Husband An Ice Cream Sandwich

Rebecca Leyba had been bad and now she owes her husband an ice cream sandwich.

Last week, Rebecca and her husband, Guadalupe, had to go out to buy windows for their home to replace the ones that were damaged in a recent storm. On their way back, they stopped for gas. While Huadalupe was filling up, he gave Rebecca $20 to go inside and buy what ever she wanted, although he did let it be known that he hoped she would pick him up an ice cream sandwich.

Did Rebecca get her husband an ice cream sandwich? Nope! She spent the entire $20 on a scratch-off lottery ticket. Tsk, tsk... Bad Rebecca!

Rebecca and Guadalupe went on their way, minus the ice cream sandwich. Rebecca scratched the ticket in the car... Winner! The ticket won $200,000!

Luckily, Rebecca picked a $200,000 winner and the cash made up for the lack of ice cream sandwich.

Rebecca Leyba won the $200,000 on a scratch game from New Mexico Lottery called Diamond Avalanche. Diamond Avalanche costs $20 to play and the odds of winning the $200,000 top prize are approximately 1-in-120,000.

Rebecca plans to use the money to help out their kids, pay some bills, and buy Guadalupe an ice cream sandwich, seeing as she owes him one.

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Jayant Gondgalekar Treats His Family To Dinner To Celebrate Lottery Win

It's Thanksgiving today, so let's talk about food. This is Jayant Gondgalekar. He won $247,338 in the lottery and claimed his winnings this week. When he picked up his money, he said that he would celebrate by treating his family to dinner. Mmmm, food!

I'm not a big turkey fan, so if I were part of his family, I'd suggest going out for some cevape. If you don't know what that it, I'd suggest doing a local search to find out who makes it in your area and go try it. Delicious! If cevape is a no-go, maybe a nice juicy steak would do. Ah, but I'm not part of the family, so I don't have any say in the matter.

Jayant Gondgalekar won $247,338, the second prize, in the November 4, 2011 Lotto Max draw. He was just one number away from hitting the jackpot, which would have made him a multi-millionaire. Nevertheless, he was happy with his prize. "I was in shock when I checked my ticket and saw the 'big win' sign flashing," he said. Shock, that's a common reaction with the winners featured on this site!

At the time of his win, Jayant Gondgalekar lived in Markham, Ontario, which is just outside of Toronto. I know, it's not Thanksgiving in Canada today, but Canadians do like to eat too, you know?

Aside from taking his family out to dinner, Jayant Gondgalekar planned to use the money to pay off his mortgage and make some investments.

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Lottery Winner Gordon Hieatt Killed His Prostitute Girlfriend

This site has featured some crazy lottery stories, but none as sick as this one.

This is a picture of Gordon Hieatt. He won the lottery in New Zealand in the 1990's - $750,000 New Zealand Dollars ($555,636 USD). However, the rest of this story doesn't have anything to do with how he spent his winnings (He actually blew it all on bad investments); it's about his life, post-lottery.

Gordon Hieatt enjoyed being in the company of prostitutes. In fact, his most recent girlfriend was a prostitute, a woman from Thailand named Nuttidar Vaikaew. Apparently, he loved her. Her loved her so much that he said he couldn't live without her. He couldn't live with her either. Is there an in-between? What if he killed her and continued to live in the same apartment as the body. Would that be living with her or without her?

This is where the story gets disgusting. Gordon was living with Nuttidar Vaikaew in her apartment in Auckland, New Zealand. In April of 2011, they had an argument. It is alleged that Gordon then strangled her. She died. That day, Gordon washed her body and placed her in bed. He spent the night in bed with her dead body. Gordon, however, said that he never touched her in a sexual way that night. Ya, as if that makes the whole situation any better.

Gordon Hieatt's girlfriend was now dead. He killed her. However, for the next few weeks, he carried on life as normal, while her decomposing body was left in the apartment. Life went on. He continued to visit prostitutes and even went to family functions as if nothing happened. He cheered himself up by reading jokes.

Almost a month after the murder, Nuttidar Vaikaew's landlord came to the apartment to check on overdue rent. Gordon answered the door and she smelled the strong stench of the decomposing body. The landlord called the police.

The police came. When Gordon answered the door, he said, "She is dead and has been dead for four weeks. We had an argument and I killed her." The police found the body in the apartment covered in blankets. There were dead flies and maggots all around it.

Gordon Hieatt was convicted of murder. He's appealing the conviction, however, saying he didn't really intend to kill her. After all, he really did love her.

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Josee Carriere Wins On $100 Millions Jumbo Scratch Game

Loto Quebec came out with their $100 Millions Jumbo instant scratch game in April of 2011. It offered 14 top prizes of $1 million. A few of those million dollar prizes have already been claimed, with the latest being Josee Carriere, who is pictured here.

Prior to her million dollar win, the most that Josee Carriere ever won in the lottery was $100. You can imagine her surprise, then, when she scratched her way to $1 million. Yep, she was indeed surprised. She described the feeling as surreal.

It was a Saturday afternoon that Josee scratched her winning ticket. As it often happens for people that win the lottery on the weekend, the wait for Monday morning was long and excruciating (The lottery prize claim office is closed on the weekend). So Josee waited. But Monday finally did come and she was then able to claim her prize.

The $100 Million Jumbo instant scratch game that Josee Carriere won on is offered by Loto Quebec and costs $10 to play. The game offers 14 top prizes of $1 million. The odds of winning the top prize are just over 1-in-1-million. The odds of winning any prize in the game are approximately 1-in-3.3.

At the time of her win, Josee Carriere lived just outside of Montreal. She said that the first thing she'll do with the money is pay off her mortgage. Other than that, there are no plans.

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Roy Chase - Stolen Lottery Ticket

A few years ago, Dateline NBC ran an undercover sting into lottery prize thefts. They went into 50 different stores to check a stack of lottery tickets. One of the tickets in the stack was a $1000 winner. The undercover customer, who was wearing a hidden camera, would give the clerk his tickets to have them checked and then continued shopping in the store. The goal of the sting was to see if the clerks would be honest and tell the customer that he won $1000.

Out of the fifty stores, how many of the clerks do you think were honest and how many tried to steal the winning lottery ticket? Well, it turns out that most, as expected, were honest. However, seven were not. Seven of the clerks scanned the $1000 winner, yet told the customer that they didn't win anything. Why? They wanted the money for themselves.

7-out-of-50 lottery clerks were dishonest. That's 14%. Now, this wasn't a scientific survey, so we don't know the actual figure of the percentage of clerks that would steal a customer's lottery ticket. With that said, we do know that not everyone's honest. We can't trust everybody.

You might say that this was just a TV show, designed to encourage clerks to steal a ticket; it wouldn't happen in real life. Really? It does happen.

Pictured above is Roy Chase. He won $200,000 in Powerball, but he might not have. See, he's a trusting person. Roy does what many of us do - He takes his lottery tickets into the store and asks the clerk to check them. That's what he did in June of 2011, when he took his tickets to the Xpress Mart store in Portland, Tennessee and did just that. The clerk at the store, allegedly, scanned his tickets, saw that it was a $200,000 winner, yet told him that he didn't win anything.

The clerk's name was Kanubhai Bhatt. A few months later, in August of 2011, Kanubhai's son-in-law, Piyushkumar Patel, tried to cash in the winning ticket at Tennessee Lottery's prize claim office.

When you claim a big lottery prize, the lottery office will do an investigation before they pay out. Thankfully, in this case, Tennessee Lottery was able to determine that the lottery ticket was stolen. Thankfully, as well, they were able to determine the rightful owner of the stolen ticket - Roy Chase. In November of 2011, Roy got his money, but he just as easily might not have, all because he was too trusting.

Kanubhai Bhatt and Piyushkumar Patel are scheduled to appear in court in December of 2011 to answer to charges of felony theft.

Folks, make sure you check your lottery tickets yourself. Don't just blindly hand it over to the store clerks. You never know when people will try to steal your money.

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Shawn Niedomanski Takes Limo To Maryland Lottery Prize Claim Office

On November 16, 2011 Shawn Niedomanski rented a sleek black limo. The destination? Maryland Lottery prize claim office. The reason? Cash in a $200,000 Powerball win.

Shawn had actually won the $200,000 two weeks prior to that, but wanted to wait until his birthday to make the trip; he wanted to make an event out of it. So, on his birthday, the limo rolled into Maryland Lottery headquarters. Out came Shawn Niedomanski, followed by his wife, brother, nephew, and three close friends.

Shawn got his money, but the day wasn't over yet. He had a limo and $200,000 in his pocket, so the group went out. Where did they go? To the casino! It turns out that Shawn's a little bit of a gambler. He ended up winning $1000 at the casino that day.

Shawn Niedomanski and his group had a wonderful time celebrating his big win on his birthday. However, that event was just a one-time thing. Shawn realizes that $200,000 won't really drastically change his lifestyle. "It's like it's never happened. I still got my job, and all I'm doing is paying off bills," he said. Yep, but an extra $200,000 is still nice, though.

At the time of his win, Shawn lived in Ijamsville, Maryland, which is just west of Baltimore. He will continue playing the lottery, hoping for a really big win one day. Shawn spends an average of $50 a week on lottery tickets and that probably won't change.

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Dennis Brittain Wins Diamonds & 7's Scratch-Off Game

This is Dennis Brittain. In July of 2011, he walked into a store in Milroy, Pennsylvania and bought a scratch-off game called Diamonds & 7's.

As many of us do when we buy scratch-offs, Dennis scratched the ticket in the store. Unlike most of us, though, he won the game's jackpot - $250,000!

How would you react if you walked into a store, bought a lottery ticket, and then instantly became $250,000 richer? Disbelief? Probably. That was Dennis Brittain's reaction too - Disbelief!

The Diamonds & 7's scratch-off game that Dennis won on costs $10 to play. It offers prizes ranging from $20 to $250,000. The odds of winning any prize in the game are approximately 1-in-3.58. The odds of winning the $250,000 top prize are approximately 1-in-480,000.

Dennis was a lucky guy that fateful day. He has two children and, so, plans to set aside the money for his family.

At the time of his win, Dennis Brittain lived in Milroy, Pennsylvania, which is between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

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John Stephenson - Postcode Lottery Winner

Do you like your neighbors? Imagine you and all of your neighbors winning the lottery at the same time. That would be cool if you like your neighbors. It would suck, though, if you hate your neighbors.

If you live in England, this could actually happen. They have a lottery called the People's Postcode Lottery (A postcode is the UK equivalent of a zip code). Basically, instead of drawing numbers, they draw a postcode; if you live in that postcode, you win money... That is, if you bought a ticket, of course. That's a pretty cool concept for a lottery and quite innovative.

Pictured here is John Stephenson reacting to winning the Postcode Lottery. He won £166,666 in November of 2011. That works out to $261,143 USD. He's a big winner and that explains why he looks so happy!

John Stephenson said that the cash couldn't have come at a better time. He's turning 65-years-old on Christmas Eve this year and is all set to retire. Now he's got some retirement money to play with.

Even with a looming retirement, John was thinking about taking care of his family first. "Family comes first for us, so we won't be doing anything until we've taken care of them. I have four children, 10 grandchildren, one great-grandson and another on the way," he said. Aside from sharing the money with his family, John also plans to do some traveling, maybe somewhere hot in Europe or a cruise.

Oh ya, I forgot to mention... Some of John Stephenson's neighbors won the too. After all, this is the Postcode Lottery. It's OK, though, because John likes his neighbors.

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Dana Talbert - $6 Million Lottery Winner

If you're 60-years-old and you've never owned a house, you probably never will. Your dreams of home ownership are pretty much gone by that age... Unless... Unless you win the lottery!

The lottery can turn your world upside down and make the impossible possible. That's what it did for Dana Talbert.

Dana Talbert is a $6 million lottery winner. She won $6 million playing Washington Lotto in October of 2011. She was 60-years-old when she won.

Dana Talbert never owned her own home; she couldn't afford to do so. Now, at the age of 60, Dana's dream of owning a home will become reality. She could afford it now - She's a millionaire! Isn't the lottery great? How else would this have ever been possible for her?

Dana had been playing the lottery faithfully since 1986. She played all of the main games that Washington Lottery offered, including Lotto, Hit 5, Match 4, and Powerball. She also had her own numbers, which were based on her children's birthdates. Finally, after 25 years of playing, she hit it big with Washington Lotto.

At the time of her win, Dana Talbert lived in Redmond, Washington and worked as a housekeeper. Aside from buying a house, she also plans to use the money to pay off her debts and retire.

Have a happy retirement, Dana!

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Jason Fry - BatteriesPlus Franchise King

Pictured here is Jason Fry. He's another lottery winner that was featured on TLC's Lottery Changed My Life TV show.

Jason Fry won $13.6 million from Florida Lotto in December of 2007.

What can you do with a $13.6 million win? Tons of stuff - You can party, you can travel the world, you can relax... Or, if you're Jason Fry, you can get into your real life-long passion - BATTERIES!

Yep, Jason loves batteries, so he bought a BatteriesPlus franchise in Cape Coral, Florida. After purchasing the store, he was able to increase the sales at that location by 30%, making it the #1 BatteriesPlus store in the country. That made him the BatteriesPlus franchise king! Since then, he's opened two more locations and is looking into opening more. Business is good!

OK, I'm being a little sarcastic here. Batteries really aren't Jason's passion. He's a business-man and buying the BatteriesPlus store was a business decision. After winning the lottery, he took some time off for himself. After a while he got bored and wanted to do something. Sitting around doing nothing just didn't appeal to him. A friend of his suggested the BatteriesPlus franchise and after doing some due-diligence, he decided to go for it.

Jason did his research - The U.S. battery industry is a $24 billion a year industry. The average American household has 21 items that require batteries. Even in a bad economy, consumers might put off new purchases, but they would continue to buy batteries to keep what they already have running. Sounds like good business sense.

The only problem I see with this is, whenever I need a new battery, I never say to myself, "I need to go to the battery store." They sell batteries at the local convenience store, you know? That's just me, though. BatteriesPlus does, however, offer some specialized services like watch battery repair that you can't find at the local convenience store.

Aside from buying the franchise as a business decision, Jason Fry also wanted to do his part to boost the economy in his home town. "I want people to know that I didn't run to the south of France. I put my money back into our economy. Maybe it's not a huge amount of money, but every little bit helps. It's sad to drive up and down (U.S.) 41 and see all the closed businesses." Cool, but if it were me, I'd have run off to the south of France. Marseille sounds nice. Je veux une bouteille de vin rouge, s'il vous plaît.

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Don and Linda Ingram - $50 Million Lotto Max Winners From Oshawa

The Friday November 18, 2011 Lotto Max jackpot was worth $50 million. The winning ticket was sold in Oshawa, Ontario. Normally, we'd have to wait until the lottery prize office opened on Monday to find out who the winner was, that's assuming they step forward that quickly. I don't think we've ever publicly found out the winner of a weekend lottery draw any sooner than that.

Well, that's all changed, as the Oshawa Lotto Max winners publicly came forward on Saturday, November the 19th, before they even claimed the ticket at the prize-claim office. I'm not too sure how that happened or why they decided to come out publicly so fast. I would recommend against other people following their lead as that could cause numerous problems, the least of which could be a stolen ticket.

Anyway, the big winners are Don and Linda Ingram, who are pictured above. $50 million! Fantastic!

One of the first questions people ask of new lottery winners is "What are you going to do with the money?" Trips... New cars... New houses... These are some of the most common answers. Don and Linda Ingram were different, though. They were thinking of their daughter. The couple had lost touch with their daughter years ago. They didn't specifically state why, but it sounded like it wasn't an amicable separation. Now that they won the lottery, they say that there's going to be a reunion and that they will make her a millionaire (The couple have a son too, and they'll make him a millionaire as well).

That's quite a touching story; Don and Linda Ingram can have any material thing that they want, now that they won $50 million, but all they really want is their daughter back. That just goes to show what really is important in this world.

At the time of their win, Don and Linda Ingram lived in Oshawa Ontario, which is just east of Toronto. The couple had been married for thirty years and they both worked as cooks at a diner called Wally's World. Linda said that she's like to keep working because she enjoys it, but I'm sure she'll reconsider that soon enough.

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Prayer Helps Destiny McCain Win The Lottery

This is Destiny McCain. She is a single mother of four. One of her daughter's need extensive dental work, but she can't afford it. Money is tight as she's also going to school to be a radiology technician. She's doing all of this on a bartender's wage.

What is she supposed to do about money? Well, maybe she could play the lottery.

That's what Destiny did - She played the lottery. Destiny McCain bought a Powerball lottery ticket. She said a prayer and then tucked the ticket away.

You know what happened next, right? She won the lottery! Destiny won $200,000, the second prize, in the November 12, 2011 Powerball draw.

Did the prayer help her win the lottery? She wasn't praying to be rich, selfishly. No, she needed the money for her family, especially her daughter that needed dental work, which she couldn't afford. Maybe it was the prayer. Or, maybe when your name is Destiny, you're just destined for fortune. Either way, she a winner!

Destiny was just one number away from hitting the Powerball jackpot, but she's more than grateful for her $200,000 win. "No, it isn't a lifetime of money, but this will help us out so much," she said.

At the time of her win, Destiny McCain lived in Liberal, Kansas, which is right near the Oklahoma border.

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How Many Lottery Prizes Go Unclaimed Every Year?

Have you ever bought a scratch-off ticket, scratched it, looked at the ticket, and found that it wasn't a winner, only to realize that it really did win something upon closer examination? Luckily, you were able to catch your mistake instead of throwing the ticket away.

People make these mistakes all the time and it's a lot more common than you think. Often, these tickets get thrown away and the prizes go unclaimed. How many of these prizes go unclaimed every year? Thousands of them, representing millions of dollars worth of lottery wins. Most of the unclaimed prizes are small. Some of them, however, are life-changing amounts worth millions of dollars. For example, a $4.6 million jackpot went unclaimed in Massachusetts in 2002, a $14 million jackpot went unclaimed in Illinois in 2005, and a whopping $51.7 million jackpot went unclaimed in Indiana in 2002. It happens.

It almost happened to Andrew Hunter too. Last week, he bought a Mega Millions ticket. He matched one number, plus the Mega number. That's a $3 prize. However, he didn't realize that matching just one number, plus the Mega number wins a prize, so he threw the ticket in the trash.

$3 - big deal, right? You might say that's just pocket change. Sure, but consider what many people do with small lottery wins - They often reinvest the small wins into more tickets. So, those extra tickets might win you a bigger prize.

Andrew Hunter, somehow, realized his mistake and dug the winning ticket back out from the trash. He cashed it in and, he too, used the money to buy more tickets. He won $3, so he bought three more Mega Millions tickets for the November 15, 2011 draw. Guess what happened? Andrew won a big prize on one of those three tickets - $250,000!

"I would have never bought that ticket if I hadn't pulled the other ticket out of the trash," Andrew said.

Andrew was lucky; he caught his mistake. Have you ever thrown a winning ticket away? Maybe you have, but you just don't realize it.

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Kevin and Theresa Brooks - Lotto Max Second Prize Winners

Lotto Max is Canada's biggest lottery. It offers jackpots that reach up to $50 million. That's nothing compared to The United States, where Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots often reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars. That's OK, though, because Canadians are always happy with less :)

The Lotto Max game offers a decent second prize, which is usually hundreds of thousands of dollars. Kevin and Theresa Brooks know all about that. That's what they won when they matched 6-out-of-7 numbers, plus the bonus, on the November 11, 2011 Lotto Max Draw. Their take was $669,940.

The couple, from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, normally spend about $20 a week playing the lottery. Two days after the draw, news spread around Yellowknife that the winning ticket was sold somewhere in that city. So Kevin took the stack of tickets that they played for the week and went to the store to check them. He scanned them, one-by-one, at the ticket checker. All tickets were losers... Until he got to the last ticket. Big winner. $669,940. Nice!

Kevin Brooks, then, called his wife to tell her the news. He asked her if she was sitting down. If someone asks you to sit down because they have something to tell you, you know it's either really good news or really bad news. Luckily, winning the lottery is good news. Upon hearing her husband ask her to sit down, and knowing that her husband went to check the lottery tickets, and knowing that a winning ticket was sold in Yellowknife, she sort of knew what was coming - Yep, it was them, they won!

Kevin and Theresa Brooks plan to use the money to buy a new car and pay off some debts.

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How To Win A Million Dollars

Wanna know how to win a million dollars? It's quite simple, really. This is what you do - First, ask your mom for a dollar. Then, take that dollar and walk on over to the corner store. Ask the clerk at the store for a lottery ticket and pay for it with your dollar. Lastly, cross your fingers.

OK, it's really not that simple. Lotteries, by design, are hard to win. Winning a million dollars is possible, though. However, playing lottery games with better odds increases your chances of winning.

There's plenty of choices when it comes to playing lottery games. Often, the big jackpot games like Mega Millions plays to our emotions due to the crazy jackpot amounts. Those types of games are the hardest to win. Perhaps you'd be better off playing a game with just a million dollar jackpot. Those games have better odds, making a jackpot win would be more probable.

Pictured above is Chris Johnston (With his wife and son). He actually did win a million dollars. He won $1 million in New York Lottery's Sweet Million game in November of 2011. He went to the store with a dollar to spend. He had many choices of games to play. He chose to play the Sweet Million game.

The odds of winning the $1 million Sweet Million jackpot are 1-in-3,838,380. He could have chosen to play Mega Millions, though, but he didn't. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1-in-175,711,536. That means that it's about 45 times easier to win the Sweet Million jackpot than the Mega Millions jackpot.

Sure, everybody would rather win Mega Millions than Sweet Million, including Chris Johnston. But a decent chance at $1 million is better than virtually no chance at dozens of millions, don't you think? If Chris made the opposite choice and went with the Mega Millions ticket, he wouldn't be a winner today.

Chris Johnston is now a million dollars richer. He's gonna live good. He's planning on using the money to take his family on a vacation, somewhere warm, and to buy a nice TV to watch football on. The rest will go to his retirement fund.

At the time of his win, Chris Johnston was 49-years-old, worked as a baker at a supermarket, and lived in Port Jervis, NY, which is just west of New York City.

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Patrick Hinds Wins New Mexico's Platinum Card Scratcher

This is Patrick Hinds. He won $100,000 on New Mexico Lottery's Platinum Scratcher game.

Patrick has two kids, aged 10 and 12.

When the kids found out that daddy won the lottery, they were more interested in what's in it for them. So the big question for daddy was, "Dad, can we get a maid to clean our bedrooms?" Daddy's answer - "No, go do your chores!" Hahaha... Suckers! Hey, it was worth a try, though.

On Friday November 4, 2011, Patrick Hinds stopped into the store to buy a soda. While at the store, he also bought two scratcher tickets from New Mexico Lottery called Platinum Card. He scratched the first one and won the game's top prize - $100,000. He doesn't even remember what happened to the second ticket. Did he even scratch it? Did it get lost in the commotion? Who knows? You could forgive him for not caring, though, because he just won the lottery!

The Platinum Card game that Patrick won on costs $10 to play. The odds of winning the game's top prize of $100,000 are approximately 1-in-120,000.

At the time of his win, Patrick Hinds was an electrician and lived in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico, which is about 200 miles north of Albuquerque. He said that he planned to use the money to pay of his car and some other bills, but NO MAID FOR THE KIDS!

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How To Pick Up Chicks With The Lottery

Wanna know how to use the lottery pick up chicks? The lottery's a good ice-breaker, at least in some circumstances.

Let me give you an example. You're in a restaurant. The waitress is pretty. You want to ask her out, but you're too shy to do it directly. You can then pull the lottery ticket out of your pocket and tell her that you don't have enough money for a decent tip. However, if the lottery ticket wins the jackpot, you tel her that you'll split it with her. Great way to break the ice, right? If you actually win, you get a date with the hot waitress (Going to the lottery prize claim office together would be considered a date, right?).

I know, I know, this is cheesy. OK, another example. You frequent a particular restaurant because you like the waitress. You know she likes playing the lottery because you often overhear her talking about it. So, you tell her that the two of you could increase your chances of winning if you pool your money and play together. Then, when you win, it's a date... to the prize claim office! This is cheesy too? Oh well.

Never mind picking up chicks with the lottery, then. Let me introduce you to our two newest lottery winners. Edward Dunnill and Thuy Le Muir, from Thunder Bay, Ontario. They just won $1 million.

Edward Dunnill frequented Thuy Le Muir's restaurant in Thunder Bay. In October of 2011, they decided to play the lottery together to try to increase their chances of winning. Then, just a few weeks later, they won!

Wait... Hold on a second... Guy. Restaurant. Waitress. Lottery. Hmmm.

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California SuperLotto Plus Winners John And Norma Jean Crippen

John Crippen is 81-years-old. He still works. Now he won the lottery. You think it's time for him to retire? Nope!

Really, though, if you've worked your entire life, that's all you know how to do. Then when you get a cash windfall and suddenly don't need to work for financial reasons, what are you supposed to do? Perhaps people in these situations would just go stir-crazy? Who knows?

John Crippen and his wife, Norma Jean, are winners of a California SuperLotto Plus jackpot of $14.2 million. They won the jackpot in November of 2011.

It's John's numbers that came up. He had been playing the same numbers for more than ten years. The numbers didn't have any special meaning to him; they're just numbers that he chose and then continued to play.

Now John's numbers have finally been drawn and he plans to continue working. He said that he actually tried to retire three times before and that it just didn't work out for him. He said that he needs to do something constructive. I think John is one of those guys that goes stir-crazy when he's not working.

The odds of winning California's SuperLotto Plus jackpot are approximately 1-in-41.4-million.

At the time of their win John and Norma Jean Crippen lived in Rancho Mirage, California, which is just outside of Los Angeles. They said that they might use the money to take the entire family on a cruise to Alaska.

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What Happens To People After Winning The Lottery?

Ever wonder what happens to people after winning the lottery? Well, things could go in two different directions. People can either:

1. Be smart with their money; or
2. Blow their money.

What better way to show this then with a case study of two friends winning the lottery together? Keith Bryce is pictured here with his wife. He and his friend, Thayo Robelin, won the lottery in November of 2005, a $17.5 million Mega Millions jackpot. Each of the two friends received $8,750,000. If you haven't done so already, read the story of Thayo Robelin first, then come back and read Keith's story.

As you now know, Thayo Robelin was smart with his money, meaning that he still has it and is enjoying life. Keith Bryce went in the exact opposite direction. He blew it. He's now either broke or close to broke.

As soon as he won the lottery, Keith Bryce started dishing out money - To friends, to family, to pretty much anybody that asked him for some. Within the first month of winning the lottery, Keith gave away more than a million dollars.

Aside from giving away money, he also bought toys, plenty of toys. A new house, A Harley, a Corvette, and an Escalade. He didn't only buy toys for himself, he bought toys for friends and family too, including Harleys for his brothers and a Cadillac for his mother.

The money was flowing out. There were also charitable donations. There were rounds of free drinks to strangers at bars. There were $100 tips to waitresses at restaurants. There were gambling trips to Las Vegas, first class, staying in presidential suites.

Reckless spending. Most of it is now gone.

Before winning the lottery, Keith Bryce worked as a window installer. After winning the lottery, he lived the life most people could only dream about. Today, he's come full circle - He's back to installing windows for a living.

Two friends won the lottery and they embarked on totally different paths. One was smart with his money. One wasn't. I wonder if they still keep in touch.

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Chris Annett Wins A Ferrari 458 Italia

Picture this - It's early morning. You're still asleep. The phone rings. You answer. Hello. Hi, you just won a Ferrari 458 Italia!

That jolts you out of your bed. Ferrari 458 Italia? What? Are you kidding me? The same car that was voted "Best Performance Engine" by International Engine Of The Year Awards? The same car that was voted "World Performance Car of the Year" by the New York Times? The same car that was voted "Supercar of the Year" by BBC Top Gear Magazine? Yep, that's what you won!

This isn't just any car. It's a $329,000 machine with 562 horsepower, 398 lb-ft of torque and capable of going from 0 to 60 in just over 3 seconds. It's all yours!

OK, now stop imagining this scenario. It won't happen to you. But it happened to a guy named Chris Annett, from Waterloo, Ontario, who he got that very phone call that woke him up out of his sleep on November 16, 2011.

Chris Annett is pictured above appreciating the car. He won the prize from the Princess Margaret Hospital Lottery early bird draw.

As soon as Chris got the phonecall, he made his way from Waterloo to Toronto, just over a one hour drive. The whole drive, he was thinking that he wouldn't keep the car; he would sell it. Then he got a glimpse of the car and began to reconsider. "Unfortunately I think I may be going for a sale, or at least I did before I walked out and saw it," he said.

Then Chris was handed the keys to the car. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to drive it away. He had to get it insured first. D'oh!

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Thayo Robelin - Don't Ask This Lottery Winner For Money

This is Thayo Robelin. He won the lottery. Don't ask him for any money, though, because you're not getting it. Seriously, would you even consider asking a guy holding a machete for some money? Didn't think so!

I'm just joking. I didn't mean to make Thayo sound mean and tough; he's actually a great guy and a dedicated family man. But there's a reason I said not to ask him for money. More on that in a moment.

Thayo Robelin was recently featured on The Lottery Changed My Life TV show. His story began in November of 2005. He had a four-month-old son. He needed to go out to the store to pick up a few things, but he didn't want to leave the house. It was cold and he didn't want to take his young son out into that cold night. So he asked a friend, a co-worker named Keith Bryce, to pick up bread, milk, eggs, and a few Mega Millions tickets and bring it over.

Keith obliged. He bought the bread, milk, and eggs. He bought five mega millions tickets for Thayo. He also bought five Mega millions tickets for himself. When Keith came to Thayo's house, he asked him to choose which tickets he wanted to take. He didn't want to make that decision, so the two friends agreed to split any prize that they won evenly down the middle.

Guess what? They won! $17.5 million. That was $8,750,000 each.

This is where the two friends' paths went into opposite directions. Thayo was careful with his money. Keith blew his money.

This story is about Thayo, though, so I won't say much about Keith. I have a post about Keith coming up shortly, so I'll tell his story at that time.

Let's rewind a few years prior to Thayo Robelin winning the lottery. Thayo had a criminal past. In 1999, his home and car were raided by the police. The police claimed that he was the leader of a syndicate that smuggled drugs into his home state of Michigan. He spent time in prison for that. Even before and after the 1999 raid, Thayo had numerous drugs and weapons charges laid against him. Yep, he was a criminal.

Then his first son was born in 2005. He needed to change. He wanted to change. His son needed a good role model and Thayo wanted to be that role model. So he left his criminal past behind. He got a job installing windows. Now Thayo was making an honest living.

Four months after his son was born, Thayo Robelin won the lottery. But Thayo was careful with his money. He didn't go on any lavish spending sprees, like many lottery winners do. He didn't give much money away to friends and family, also what many lottery winners do. He wanted that money to take care of his son. So he was careful with it.

So Thayo Robelin had money and his criminal past was behind him. He was a good man. In fact, he was in a bar one day, shortly after his lottery win, when he saw a familiar face. It was one of the cops that was involved in the 1999 raid. The two spoke. The cop even bought Thayo a beer. That's when you know you're no longer a criminal, when a cop buys you a beer.

Since the lottery win, Thayo has had another son. And, he still has money. Life is good.

I will post Keith Bryce's lottery story tomorrow. In the meantime, here's something interesting. When the two friends won the lottery in 2005, news of their win spread quickly throughout Michigan. People began to flood Keith with requests for money. He often gave it to them, too. Nobody asked Thayo for money - They were too scared to do that... You know, because of his criminal past.

***UPDATE: Click here to read Keith Bryce's story.

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Leland Hughes - What Are The Odds Of Matching 5 Numbers In Powerball?

Most people know what the odds of winning Powerball are because it's quoted quite often. The odds are approximately 1-in-195-million (The odds will be improving slightly in January of 2012 when the game gets a little bit of a makeover).

However, do you know what the odds of matching 5 numbers are? Matching 5 numbers gets you the second prize, which is $200,000.

I'm sure Leland Hughes knows the answer. That's because he won the second prize, $200,000, in the October 15, 2011 Powerball draw.

The odds of matching 5 numbers are 1-in-5,138,133.

Leland Hughes won $200,000 in the October 15th draw. He claimed his winnings at Georgia Lottery's headquarters on November the 4th. Speaking about the win, Leland said, "I couldn't believe it. My wife checked online, and she kept looking at the numbers." Disbelief... That's a common reaction of most lottery winners.

Leland Hughes was just one number away from winning the Powerball jackpot, which was more than $100 million at that time. However, $200,000 is still a nice prize and he feels great about the win.

At the time of his win, Leland Hughes and his wife, Deborah, lived in Carrollton, Georgia, which is just west of Atlanta. He said that there were no immediate plans for the money.

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Donald Hillian Wins The Lottery On Remembrance Day

Donald Hillian is a navy vet. On November 11 2011, Remembrance Day, he took the day off. It was to be a day of quiet reflection for him, a day to remember the members of the armed forces who had died in the line of duty.

On that day, Donald didn't do anything special. He did normal things that people do every day. He woke up and went out for breakfast. He got a haircut. At 11 am, he probably observed a moment of silence. Then he stopped at the store to buy a lottery ticket. He bought a quick picket ticket for Connecticut Lottery's Classic Lotto game. The day was uneventful. That night he went to sleep.

The next morning, Donald Hillian went to the store and scanned his Classic Lotto ticket in the ticket checker. He won! Donald won the jackpot of $1.5 million!

It's kind of fitting that a navy vet wins the lottery on Remembrance Day. On Monday November 14, Donald claimed his prize at Connecticut Lottery headquarters. "I still feel like I'm dreaming" is all he could say!

The Clasic Lotto game is a 6/44 game, meaning that you have to match 6-out-of-44 numbers to win the jackpot. The odds of matching all 6 numbers are approximately 1-in-7-million.

At the time of his win, Donald Hillian lived in Hartford, Connecticut. He said that he wished his mother was still alive so that he could share the winnings with her. She passed away in 2007.

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Is Richard Lustig A Quack?

You may have heard about Richard Lustig. He's in the news often. Richard won ten lottery jackpots. Now he's selling a book that he wrote to help other people win the lottery too.

I don't know exactly how much Richard won with his ten prizes, so let's just add up his three biggest wins which were $842,152, $98,992, and $73,660. That adds up to $1,014,804.

At first glance, you would think that someone that wins the lottery so much must have some kind of method or secret. How else could you explain it? Sure, that's the natural reaction most people would have. I think Richard understands this well and so, like any good entrepreneur, he decided to make something out of this demand for his "secrets" - He wrote a book that outlines his system for winning. The book is called, Learn How To Increase Your Chances Of Winning The Lottery." It's currently for sale on Amazon.

I admit, Richard's probably a good entrepreneur; he created a product that there's a big demand for. However, I think that he may just be a quack. Why? Because there is no system that can teach you to win the lottery. Perhaps Richard knows this, but he's in it for the money. Or perhaps he really believes that he "knows" how to win the lottery.

All of Richard's wins can be attributed to probabilities. Let me explain. Richard spends a lot of money on the lottery, and I mean A LOT! He says that he spends hours a day playing the lottery (That includes scratching tickets and filling out slips). There's other people that spend a lot of money on tickets, just as Richard does, all over the world.

Nobody really knows how many people spend an abnormal amount of money on lottery tickets, but there are thousands of them, maybe more. Now, if you take any one person out of these thousands of people that spend a lot of money, the probability that that that particular person will win a jackpot is still small, even though they spend a lot of money. However, as a group, the probability that some of them will win a jackpot is almost certain, you just can't pick out who it will actually be. That's the law of large numbers at work.

Now, out of the people that do win, some of them will win more than once and some of them will win multiple times. The people that win more than once aren't "special," they're just lucky. Richard Lustig just happens to be one of those people.

What makes Richard different, though, is that he's capitalizing on his publicity for winning the lottery multiple times. He shares his "secrets" in his book.

His secrets are not really secrets. They don't make any mathematical sense. For example, he says that you should be playing your own numbers instead of quick picks. This is just plain wrong - Any combination of numbers has an equal chance of being drawn, no matter if you choose them yourself or if you get a quick pick.

If Richard's "quick pick" theory held true, we would see way more people winning with their own numbers. This isn't the case, though. Richard plays the lottery in Florida. If you look at Florida's biggest game, Florida Lotto, you would find that, since 1999, 364 jackpots had been won. Out of those 364 jackpots, 201 (Or 55%) were with quick picks. I admit that these stats are meaningless unless we know what percentage of people actually played quick picks, but I would suspect it's probably just over 50%, closely matching the percentage of quick pick winners.

One thing that Richard Lustig does right, though, is that he plays games with relatively better odds. His biggest win was on a Florida Lottery game called Mega Money. The odds of winning the jackpot on Mega Money are about 1-in-3-million. That makes it about 65 times easier to win than Powerball. Some of his other big prizes came on the Fantasy 5 game, which is about 515 times easier to win than Powerball. Playing games with better odds is actually the best way to improve your chances of winning.

Is Richard Lustig really a quack then? He may be, but you can decide for yourself.

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Michelle Boucher - $1.5 Million Lottery Winner

This is Michelle Boucher. A few days ago, she had a big decision to make. She won the lottery. She had a choice of taking a $1.5 million lump-sum payment or $100,000 a year for life. That's because she won the Lotto 649 bonus draw.

I've covered a previous winner from the Lotto 649 bonus draw, Jalil Khan. During the month of October, Canada's Lotto 649 had a bonus prize for each draw. During each draw in the month, an extra set of numbers were drawn. If players matched all of the numbers, they won the bonus, giving them the same prize options that Michelle Boucher had.

So Michelle had to make a decision. What did she choose? She chose the $1.5 million lump-sum payment.

Michelle Boucher was 80-years-old when she won. It's probably fitting that she didn't go with the yearly payout. The yearly payout would be fitting for a younger person, maybe someone in their 20's or 30's that has more years to enjoy the income stream.

At the time of her win, Michelle Boucher was living in Cornwall, Ontario, which is just west of Montreal. She found out about her big win while she was scanning her tickets at the local Wal-Mart. She first scanned a scratch ticket that she had and it was a $10 winner. Then she scanned the Lotto 649 ticket and that's when she discovered that it was a big winner.

Michelle Boucher credits her big win to her late husband. She feels that he was looking down that day and sent the money to her. Now she can enjoy the money, although she'll be sharing a big portion of it with her family.

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Graden Bass - What's The Difference Between The Powerball Jackpot And The Second Prize?

In October of 2011, the Powerball jackpot was getting big. It surpassed the $100 million level. Big jackpots get more people to play, as people begin dreaming about becoming ridiculously rich.

Graden Bass was one of those people dreaming about being rich when he saw the jackpot soaring. Graden has a motto about winning: "If you are going to dance, you have to get on the floor." So he bought a ticket.

Guess what happened next? He won. I mean... he lost. Oh well, you decide.

Graden Bass matched the first five numbers. He won $200,000. A big amount of money. But Graden was playing for the jackpot. What's the difference between the Powerball jackpot and the second prize? Just one number and, in this case, hundreds of millions of dollars. If Graden matched just one more number, he would have won the jackpot of more that $100 million. He was just that close.

So Graden won $200,000. He's a winner. But he also missed out on more than $100 million. He's a loser too.

Don't get me wrong, winning $200,000 is fantastic and all, but being so close to the big prize must be at least a little disappointing. I wonder how people feel when they find out they won the Powerball second prize. Is it excitement? Or is it disappointment? I guess something's better than nothing.

At the time of his win, Graden Bass lived in Spur, Texas, which is west of Dallas. He plays the lottery regularly, but tends to buy Powerball tickets only when the jackpots are big.

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Jeff and Debbi Barth - Montana Cash Winners

Do you get excited when you win money in the lottery? I mean, would you get excited even if it was just a small prize? Jeff Barth does. He says that winning just $3 on Powerball makes him happy. So you can imagine how happy he was when he won a $100,000 Montana Cash jackpot. Yep, he must have been elated!

Jeff and Debbie Barth won the $100,000 prize on the November 9, 2011 Montana Cash draw. Debbi's an early riser, so it was about 4am on November 10 that she was up and checking their lottery tickets. All five numbers matched on the Montana Cash ticket. She realized that it was a jackpot winner.

It's 4am and you just won the lottery - What do you do? Well, you wake up your spouse of course! That's what she did - She ran into the bedroom, woke Jeff up, and told him the good news.

If anybody ever woke me up at 4am, there would be hell to pay. But I would probably make an exception if someone woke me to tell me I won the lottery. That would be OK. I don't think Jeff Barth was upset about it either. It must have been a lot of excitement in the Barth household at 4 o-clock in the morning!

Jeff and Debbi Barth are Montana Cash winners. Finally. They have been playing the game since it started twenty years ago. They never missed a draw.

The Montana Cash game is a 5/37 game, meaning that you have to match 5-out-of-37 numbers to win the jackpot. You get two lines per play. The odds of winning the jackpot, per ticket, are 1-in-217,949. Jackpots start at $20,000 and they continue to grow if they are not won.

At the time of their win, Jeff and Debbi Barth lived in Billings, Montana. They said that they would have some fun with their winnings and save the rest.

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William Ball Loves Playing The Lottery

This is William Ball accepting a ceremonial check from New york Lottery's representative, Yolanda Vega and a mascot from Stewart's Shop.

William Ball loves playing the lottery, so it's about time that he got to experience the check presentation ceremony, which is reserved for big winners. He was able to experience that due to his $1 million win from New York's Sweet Million game.

William is a regular lottery player. Like many regulars, he has a routine. He normally buys his tickets from the same store, Stewart's Shop in Queensbury, New York, which is about an hour north of Albany. He always stops at that store to pick up a coffee and his daily lottery tickets. He's there so often, in fact, that the workers know him.

So when William Ball won the Sweet Million jackpot, he returned to the store and thought he'd have a little fun with them. He chatted up with the workers and said that he'd heard that the store sold a winning Sweet Million ticket. He just wanted to see their reaction. He didn't tell them that it was him that had the winning ticket, though. Quite a joker, he is!

William won the $1 million Sweet Million jackpot on October 20, 2011. Even with the win, though, it didn't stop him from continuing to play the lottery. He loves the lottery, you know? The very next day, on October 21, William won another decent prize. He won $500 playing an instant scratch game. What a lucky guy!

At the time of his win, William Ball was 55-years-old, a father of three, a grandfather of five, and living in Glens Falls, NY.

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Ron Kiers - Blast From The Past

Lotto Max Mania is gripping Canada. The jackpot size has hit the maximum of $50 million and is currently offering an estimated 17 additional million dollar prizes.

With the jackpot being so big, I thought it was fitting to show a picture of a previous Lotto Super 7 winner, a blast from the past. Why Lotto Super 7? For those Canadians that don't remember, the current Lotto Max game replaced Lotto Super 7 in September of 2009.

Pictured above is Ron Kiers. He won a Lotto Super 7 jackpot of $18.2 million in March of 2007. At the time of his win, Ron Kiers was living in Welland, Ontario. He's had a few years now to enjoy being a millionaire. I'm sure he's living it up and enjoying life. Hopefully, he's living somewhere better than Welland, though.

Are you planning on buying a ticket for the next Lotto Max draw? Your odds of winning the $50 million jackpot are 1-in-28,633,528 per ticket played. However, seeing as there are currently seventeen additional $1 million prizes up for grabs, your odds of winning either the jackpot or one of the seventeen extra prizes are 1-in-1,590,515, per ticket played. Those extra prizes really improve the odds, don't you think?

Anyway, congratulations to Ron Kiers on his Lotto Super 7 win, albeit a belated congratulations.

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Anthony Brandano Wins New England Patriots Season Tickets For Life

Anthony Brandano can walk into Gillette Stadium in Boston today to watch the New England Patriots play. He's got tickets. Actually, he can watch them next week too. And next month. And next year. And the year after that. In fact, he can watch them any time they play at home for the rest of his life because he's got tickets to every game. Anthony's gonna be watching a lot of football!

Anthony Brandano won New England Patriots season tickets for life from Massachusetts Lottery. The prize is worth a total of $161,500. What a perfect prize for an NFL football fan!

Anthony won his prize via a Patriots themed scratch ticket. The game costs $5 to play and offers prizes ranging from $5 to $1 million. Any ticket that doesn't win an instant prize is eligible to be entered into a second chance bonus draw to win the season tickets for life package.

Anthony entered his losing ticket into the second chance draw. There were approximately 330,000 entries in total. Anthony's ticket was drawn. Lucky guy!

So, if you want to go to a New England Patriots game but can't get tickets, befriend Anthony - He's got tickets to ALL of the games!

At the time of his win, Anthony Brandano lived in Malden Massachusetts, which is just outside of Boston.

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Robert Thibodaux Profits From Cashier's Mistake

On October 29, 2011, Robert Thibodaux (He's the one on the right) walked into a Shop Rite store in Louisiana and asked the cashier for a Powerball ticket. That Powerball ticket would have cost $1. However, the cashier, mistakenly printed the Powerball ticket with the Powerplay option. The Powerplay option costs an extra dollar.

Powerplay, for those of you that don't know, multiplies any $200,000 Powerball wins by five, making the prize $1 million.

The cashier made a mistake. Robert, however, paid the extra dollar and took the ticket. Had he not done so, the cashier would have had to bought the ticket herself, as Louisiana Lottery does not allow retailers to cancel printed tickets.

Whatever, we're talking about an extra dollar here. That's trivial. However, in this case, it's not. Robert Thibodaux profited big time by the cashier's trivial mistake. He matched the first five numbers to win Powerball's second prize of $200,000. The Powerplay option multiplied that $200,000 prize to $1 million... And that's all thanks to the cashier's mistake!

Now, it's great and all that Robert profited from the cashier's mistake, but that poses another dilemma - Robert is now a lot richer than he otherwise would be, thanks to her. Does he owe her anything for that? Legally, no. Morally, your damn right he does!

Thankfully, Robert Thibodaux is a swell guy. He said that he will be cutting her a check, although he didn't say for how much.

Here's another funny story that came out of all of this - Customers at the Shop Rite store that Robert purchased the winning ticket from are now buying lottery tickets from that same cashier and asking her to make mistakes with their tickets too. Lottery ticket sales are through the roof!

At the time of his win, Robert Thibodaux was 70 years old. He said that he will be using the money to build a new house.

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Keith Gough - The Lottery Ruined My Life, Literally

You want to win the lottery, don't you? Why? Let me guess - It's because of the sudden wealth. Money. Lots of money. Money let's you do whatever you want to do; it lets you buy whatever you want to buy. You would be like a rock star.

Perhaps those aren't the reasons that you want to win. That may be so. But even still, there may be temptations if you do win.

Pictured here is Keith Gough. He won the lottery. There were temptations. He succumbed to those temptations. He's dead now. The lottery ruined his life, literally.

Keith and his then-wife, Louise, won the lottery back in June of 2005. They won £9,001,406. That works out to $14,349,819 USD. Before the lottery win, they were a normal couple, just average people that worked for a living. Nothing spectacular about them at all. Then they won the lottery. Louise coped well with the win. Keith didn't.

Keith Gough was rich. He was a rock star. He could do whatever he wanted to do. He could buy whatever he wanted to buy. He splurged on everything - Big houses, fancy cars, women. Wait... Women? Wasn't Keith married? Yep!

Keith's marriage didn't last very long after the marriage. Remember what I said about temptations? Keith was a rock star, so why would he stay with his wife when he could have younger girls?

About a year after winning the lottery, Keith was targeted by some con men that were intent on getting his money. They succeeded at that, with the help of a pretty young woman in her 20's that they hired to get close to him and pretend that she was his girlfriend. She was the temptation. It was an elaborate scheme that involved fake investments, temptation, and booze. They plundered his money and left him with nothing.

The con men were arrested years later and charged with fraud. A friend of the pretty young woman quoted her bragging about their relationship: "He's asked me to marry him. But I've no feelings for him. It's just a job. I'll do it until the money runs out."

The con men were arrested, but it was too late for Keith Gough. He was already in the midst of a downward spiral. He was broke. He became an alcoholic. He drank himself to death. Keith died in 2010.

Prior to his death, Keith told The Sun newspaper in the UK, "My life was brilliant but the Lottery ruined everything. My dreams turned to dust. What's the point of having money when it sends you to bed crying?"

The lottery ruined his life, literally.

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How To Become The Citizen Of The Year

Wanna become the citizen of the year? Don't know where to start? Here's how to do it.

Donate millions of dollars to local charities and worthy causes. Don't do it anonymously, though. Make sure you notify the news stations when you do so and make sure they're there filming it when you hand over the over-sized checks. Eventually, when you dole out enough checks, people will take notice and you'll be recognized as an upstanding citizen. They will be bestow the title of Citizen of the Year on you!

Sounds easy enough, right? Oh, damn, first you need to actually have the millions of dollars to dole out. Back to the drawing board. Actually, hold on a second... You could win the lottery!

That's what William Randy Smith did (He's pictured above). He won a $79 million Powerball jackpot on August 21st, 2011. Since then, he's been doling out millions of dollars to local charities and worthy causes in West Virginia. All of that culminated to him being bestowed the Citizen of the Year honor by Martinsburg-Berkeley County Chamber of Commerce in November of 2011.

Martinsburg-Berkeley County is located in West Virginia, just west of Washington, DC. On November 9th, 2011, the Chamber of Commerce held it's annual dinner where it handed out awards, including the Citizen of the Year award to William Randy Smith. The award was in recognition of Smith helping local causes. His donations included the purchase of a state-of-the-art mobile forensic unit for the West Virginia State Police, $20,000 to the Martinsburg Union Rescue Mission’s expansion project, the purchase of a fire truck for six different fire departments in the area, a $1.5 million donation to the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Parks & Recreation Board, and more.

So there you have it, now you know how to become the citizen of the year - Just follow William Randy Smith's lead!

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Wally Markham - Iowa Hot Lotto Winner

That's Wally Markham in the photo. He's the one in the middle. He won $7,540,000 in Iowa Lottery's Hot Lotto game.

Today he was announced as the big Hot Lotto winner by Iowa Lottery. Now everybody knows that Wally won. But before he was officially announced as the winner, some people in his hometown of Waterloo, Iowa already knew... And they benefited from it.

See, this past weekend, Wally was at a local bar in Waterloo. He couldn't keep his lottery win a secret (It's really hard to keep something like that a secret, you know?), so he let the cat out of the bag while at the bar.

Now, picture yourself in a bar one night and someone in the bar announces that they won the lottery. What would you expect to happen next? A celebration? Free drinks? Maybe, but you know everybody in the bar would get at least one round of drinks, courtesy of the lottery winner.

That's what happened. Wally bought drinks all night. He said it cost him a fortune. Haha, for some reason, I don't feel bad for him!

Jackpots in the Hot Lotto Game from Iowa Lottery start at $1 million. The jackpot grows if it is not won. The odds of winning the Hot Lotto jackpot are approximately 1-in-11-million.

At the time of his win, Wally Markham was 65-years-old and retired. He doesn't have any special purchases planned for the money. He said he already has everything he needs.

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Rosemarie Moulson-Newell Wins $100,000 In Poker Lottery Game

Ontario has a cool game called Poker Lotto. People seem to like it and a big part of the reason for that is that you get two chances to win.

When you buy a Poker Lotto ticket, you get to watch your hand being dealt on the screen of the lottery terminal. You can win money instantly based on your hand, from a free ticket for getting a pair of jacks, queens, kings, or aces, to $5000 for getting a royal flush. If you don't win instantly, then you get a second chance to win in the nightly draw, from $5 for matching two of your cards, to $100,000 for matching all five of your cards.

The game's a pretty cool concept. I've covered a previous Poker Lotto winner named Bruce Aigner, who won the game's top prize of $100,000. Now, here's Rosemarie Moulson-Newell. She is pictured here. Rosemarie also won the game's top prize of $100,000. She won it on the October 29, 2011 draw.

Rosemarie Moulson-Newell said that she plays the lottery regularly, but only started playing Poker Lotto because her friends kept telling her that they won a lot of prizes on the game (Albeit, small prizes). So, on the recommendation of her friends, she started playing it too. Now she's a big winner. I'm sure her friends will be jealous!

At the time of her win, Rosemarie Moulson-Newell was 48-years-old and lived in Bracebridge, Ontario, which is about two hours north of Toronto. She said that she planned to use the money to buy a car and also to go on a vacation.

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