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A man who won a staggering £13 million jackpot, branded it a ‘lottery of death’ after he blew through the lot in a matter of months, spent time behind bars, and even survived an assassination attempt from his own brother.
Pennsylvanian William Post III, known as Bud, said he managed to scrape together $40 (£32) after pawning a ring and spent it on lottery tickets back in 1988.
His landlady, who was also his on-off partner, Ann Karpik bought an additional 20 entries and one of those 60 tickets turned out to be the jackpot winner.
Post scooped a whopping $16.2million (£13m) and took the option to have it paid out annually, in instalments of $498,000 (£401,253).
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With such a healthy sum of money landing in his account each year, you’d think Post would be set for life, but as we've seen before from lottery winners, it didn't turn out like that.
According to reports at the time, Post managed to burn his way through $300,000 (£241,719) of his first payout ‘within weeks’ of receiving it.
And if you’re wondering how he managed to do that, well, despite not owning a pilot's licence, Post splashed out on a twin-engine plane for himself and bought businesses for his siblings.
In the words of his bankruptcy lawyer John Lacher: “He did everything you would expect of a guy who became a millionaire overnight.”
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Unbelievably, just three months after being given his $498,000, he was $500,000 (£402,865) in debt and, when his second instalment landed in his bank account, rather than pay what he owned, he bought a $395,000 (£318,263) mansion - leaving his debts to mount.
His money problems weren’t his only worries - his brother Jeffery hired a hitman to try and kill Post and his sixth wife, in a botched attempt to claim an inheritance.
Things continued on a downward spiral for Post; in 1989, one year after his big win, Karpik launched legal proceedings against Post, claiming he had told her they would split the cash and in 1992 she won the case.
With his debts mounting, Post sold his mansion and auctioned off the rest of his annual lottery payouts.
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What was left of his cash prize, around $2.6 million (£2.09m) , was soon frittered away, too.
But Post’s bad luck wasn’t over yet - in 1998 he was arrested for an assault conviction from six years previous. Post had been convicted after firing a gun at a debt collector who turned up at his home.
Post served his time and came out to a very different way of life - living off just $450 (£362) a month disability payment. He died penniless in 2006 aged just 66.
Talking about the dark side of his win in 1993, Post said: "Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realises the nightmares that come out of the woodwork, or the problems, I was much happier when I was broke.”
Topics: Money, National Lottery, US News
Claire Reid