NSFW: Uptown Bookstore sells $128 Million Powerball tix

[mikefmich]

Personally, if I won 128 million, I wouldn't give a rats ass if I pulled it from the tush of a gay stripper.

[pffft]

I'm a little tired of the inevitable stories of how awful it is to win so much money, to have relatives with their hands out, etc.
What about all the plus sides, no more mortgage payments, buy what you want, help grandma...enough of the doomsday. As if getting a windfall is ever a bad thing.
Get an unlisted phone number if you don't want to hear from Uncle Pete.

[mikefmich]

pfffft, have you ever seen the articles with numerous people who have won large lottos that went thru ruin afterwards and expressed they wished it had never happened?

The biggest case in point was the guy in WV who won one of the largest lottos ever....300 some odd million. What was interesting he was a successful businessman and a modest millionaire before he won. By the time it was all over his wife divorced him, he had numerous run-ins with the law, and his granddaughter was dead.
He was broke in just a few years. Surely some stupidity and naivete on his part. He rues the day he won that lotto, and he is not the only one.

Another one I remember specifically was the first Michigan million dollar lotto winner in the early 70's, a guy named Herman Millsaps. He went down fast also.

Here is some reading you might want to see.
http://www.content4reprint.com/recre...or-stories.htm

Yeah, sometimes a windfall is a bad thing.

[Lostlegumes]

3 things you need when you win big:
Financial planner
PO Box
Nonpublished phone number

[gnome]

This my story about a run-in with a paranoid Lotto Winner.

Last year the bride and I were Sunday Driving / House Hunting in Northville. We turned down a road off Hines Drive to go look at a tiny house we had seen before. It was one of those places surrounded by larger homes, but it sat on about 3 acres and abutted a forest.

We saw the place back in 2005 and they wanted a half million for the 700 sq ft home and property. A little too rich for us, but we'd check on it every so often to see if it was sold or not.

On this particular Sunday we drive by and see that someone has bought the place and installed a hideous wart of a house. We slow down and crawl past while discussing our opinions about the place. We drive to the end of the street, turn around to drive by again; however our way is blocked by an older man and his son.

I should mention the someone in the new house was having a birthday party, hence the road was narrowed by the parked cars of the attendees.

We are a little confused about what is going on as it looks like the old guy is mad about something. So we back up into another driveway and put the car in park. He and the son get out of their Ford and start waving their arms wildly. The son is in a PellePelle get up with the hat sideways and the older guy is your basic older guy, but they are both mad as hell and screaming.

We have no idea what we did, why they are mad or how to get the hell out of there. The more he yells the stranger the situation and we start talking about calling the cops, but we aren't positive about the name of the road. Finally, I off-road it a bit around a couple of the birthday cars and slowly drive away. While this is going on he is on the phone. We surmise he is calling the cops. We drive to the far end of the street and wait for the brethern.

Turns out that the old guy was David Sneath, former Ford Hi-Lo driver, now Lottery Multi-Millionaire and local Northville Paranoid. According to the police Mr. Sneath calls them a couple time a week. Once someone parked too close to his car. Another time his shopping cart was bumped.

So here is a once regular old schmoe who now gets freaked out when people drive by his house. Maybe he has all reason to be wary. Maybe so. But it is the fact that he has all this dough that has now made him a real or imagined target.

I see this as a real curse. Once you get the money, your old life is over. You can never go to a reunion or a family gathering without Cousin Eddie hitting you up for braces for little Bobby or your old teammate asking for some seed money to start a worm farm.

Even if you get really good at saying "no", you have to go through the process of listening to the pitch. Afterward nothing is the same. Before you might have had a beer with a pal and talked about the Lions sucking or maybe the best way to fix a cross threaded bolt. You can't do that anymore.

In the back of everyone's mind is the reality that you could buy the freaking Lions plus all the cross threaded bolts in the Weatern Hemisphere.

So let's say you just want to change out your old friends for new ones. New richer friends. Even if you have more dough than half the people in Grosse Pointe or Northville you will never have the background. The breeding as it were. You will always be looked at as less than; hence, you can't spend time with old friends, your new ones think you're a rube ... that leaves family.

Again, there will always be a cousin getting into rehab, a late mortage for a nephew, a sick somebody. The million you give to Cousin Eddie will encourage Scary Aunt Mary to ask for two or three. Afterall she needs it more, because her cancer is scarier, her bills are huger, her needs are morer.

And all the orphans in Haiti are starving, the AIDS people need help, the lakes need raising or lowering, the rain is acid, etc.

The curse is not that you just have the money, the curse is that everyone knows you have the money. And that you didn't earn the money. It was blind luck. Nothing more, and since you didn't earn it, you should give some to them.

When everyone has their hand out, you are bound to get paranoid at people driving by your house.

[Detwa]

We only hear about the bad stories though. There was a good story in the news not too long ago. The older gentleman who won had given most of it away to charity and he expressed how good it made him feel to be able to do so much good with it. He bought himself and his family members homes and of course kept enough to put him and his wife in a good financial position, but he didn't try to buy mansions and Bentleys and so forth. He was happy and comfortable.

Why can't people keep their lottery win a secret anyway? There's got to be a way. What one person needs that much money? I would give as much of it away as possible and as far as everyone knows- well, they wouldn't know what I had!

[pgn421]

Heard today, from 2 different sources, that a lady won the 69 mil.
She is a security guard at Greektown Casino.Congrats!

[dookie joe]

Plus, gnome, you forgot about ol' Tommy Jackson, the kid whose ass you kicked in the 3rd grade; he'll haul you into court, whining about the lifelong mental anguish you inflicted on him when you humilated him on the playground in front of the girls. Because of you, poor Tommy was never able to have children; that's worth a couple hundred thou in an out-of-court settlement.

[R8RBOB]

Heard today, from 2 different sources, that a lady won the 69 mil.
She is a security guard at Greektown Casino.Congrats!

I was in MGM on Friday and the people on the table was saying the same thing that a guard at Greektown was the real winner. When I mention the dude who got the check, the folks were adamant that he nor no club was the winner but the guard was.

My guess why she didn't come forward: she might owe the state money and the state can withhold any winnings until the debt is paid.

[pgn421]

Some people want to be anonamous.I know I would. You form a club,then have a spokes person.give him 1 million for doing it.

[R8RBOB]

This my story about a run-in with a paranoid Lotto Winner.

Last year the bride and I were Sunday Driving / House Hunting in Northville. We turned down a road off Hines Drive to go look at a tiny house we had seen before. It was one of those places surrounded by larger homes, but it sat on about 3 acres and abutted a forest.

We saw the place back in 2005 and they wanted a half million for the 700 sq ft home and property. A little too rich for us, but we'd check on it every so often to see if it was sold or not.

On this particular Sunday we drive by and see that someone has bought the place and installed a hideous wart of a house. We slow down and crawl past while discussing our opinions about the place. We drive to the end of the street, turn around to drive by again; however our way is blocked by an older man and his son.

I should mention the someone in the new house was having a birthday party, hence the road was narrowed by the parked cars of the attendees.

We are a little confused about what is going on as it looks like the old guy is mad about something. So we back up into another driveway and put the car in park. He and the son get out of their Ford and start waving their arms wildly. The son is in a PellePelle get up with the hat sideways and the older guy is your basic older guy, but they are both mad as hell and screaming.

We have no idea what we did, why they are mad or how to get the hell out of there. The more he yells the stranger the situation and we start talking about calling the cops, but we aren't positive about the name of the road. Finally, I off-road it a bit around a couple of the birthday cars and slowly drive away. While this is going on he is on the phone. We surmise he is calling the cops. We drive to the far end of the street and wait for the brethern.

Turns out that the old guy was David Sneath, former Ford Hi-Lo driver, now Lottery Multi-Millionaire and local Northville Paranoid. According to the police Mr. Sneath calls them a couple time a week. Once someone parked too close to his car. Another time his shopping cart was bumped.

So here is a once regular old schmoe who now gets freaked out when people drive by his house. Maybe he has all reason to be wary. Maybe so. But it is the fact that he has all this dough that has now made him a real or imagined target.

I see this as a real curse. Once you get the money, your old life is over. You can never go to a reunion or a family gathering without Cousin Eddie hitting you up for braces for little Bobby or your old teammate asking for some seed money to start a worm farm.

Even if you get really good at saying "no", you have to go through the process of listening to the pitch. Afterward nothing is the same. Before you might have had a beer with a pal and talked about the Lions sucking or maybe the best way to fix a cross threaded bolt. You can't do that anymore.

In the back of everyone's mind is the reality that you could buy the freaking Lions plus all the cross threaded bolts in the Weatern Hemisphere.

So let's say you just want to change out your old friends for new ones. New richer friends. Even if you have more dough than half the people in Grosse Pointe or Northville you will never have the background. The breeding as it were. You will always be looked at as less than; hence, you can't spend time with old friends, your new ones think you're a rube ... that leaves family.

Again, there will always be a cousin getting into rehab, a late mortage for a nephew, a sick somebody. The million you give to Cousin Eddie will encourage Scary Aunt Mary to ask for two or three. Afterall she needs it more, because her cancer is scarier, her bills are huger, her needs are morer.

And all the orphans in Haiti are starving, the AIDS people need help, the lakes need raising or lowering, the rain is acid, etc.

The curse is not that you just have the money, the curse is that everyone knows you have the money. And that you didn't earn the money. It was blind luck. Nothing more, and since you didn't earn it, you should give some to them.

When everyone has their hand out, you are bound to get paranoid at people driving by your house.

Interesting story. I remember David Sneath. While I was losing my ass in Greektown, he won I believe 119 million before lump sum and taxes. I also remember Mr. Sneath proudly going back to the Mobil on Joy Road where he brought the ticket and I remember watching the news seeing how he loved being in front of the camera with the winning ticket. I suppose I understand why he is paranoid. Everyone know who he is. He had to get out of the Livonia/Redford area and now he is in Northville where he is living in fear of someone wanting to take his money. I admit I want to hit the lottery so bad but I wouldn't want to live like him. I would just leave the state and change the number.

[gnome]

Yeah RRob, I remember him too from the news reports. Kind of a vigorous looking guy in his early 60's late '50s. Big but not chubby. Almost a character out of Central Casting who could play "hunter", "factory worker".... a straight shooter no bullshit guy.

Now the guy looks like he's in his mid-to-late 70's; now he's a wild-looking angry man. the bride and I had no freakin idea who this guy was, or why he was mad until the Northville breathern filled me in on the guy.

But the point of the story is not to tell stories out-of-school about Sneath; but rather to point out that money can make anyone crazy. Between managing your dough and telling people "no", your day is pretty much taken up. I feel it is not the money managing part that is the diffcult part, but the "no" part.

Since people know you have the dough they are going to hit you up all day, every day. At the store, the park the library, the church ... there is no place to hide from the constant pleading. It would be easy if all the requests were like your old high school teammate's dream of being a worm farmer. "Sorry I don't know invest in things I don't know about." and leave it at that, but you know the Sisters of the Poor are going to come knocking with a tale of a little orphan who can't afford an eye operation after paying for her parents' funeral. Or the disabled vet who needs a new wheelchair so he can start up his old paper route.

There'd be a never ending parade of pathetic stories crossing your desktop on any given day. Each one more terrible than the next, and with each one you'd have to play Caligula and give a thumbs up or down.

""now Jeeves, you've got that right, yes on the two kids caskets, no to the cancer mom, and ask for a little more info on the deer conservation program."

It must wear a fellow down to a frazzeled nub.

That why the Porno Ticket guy is interesting. He essentially is giving up a chunk of his winnings to avoid being hassled.

[Jimaz]

Related from today's Detroit news: When Winners Lose

[Thruster315]

I would just leave the state and change the number.

That would be job one right there. Family, I love ya but I'm gone overseas for awhile. Text me if you wanna chat but I'd be incognito and gone. It's a tough responsibility having all of that money and out in the public like that.

[fanniemae]

I have it planned out if I won. I would hire the very best security agency in town to watch my house and have a bodyguard. Change my phone number. Then collect the money. Hire a financial advisor. Two of them. Split the money between the two, two accounts. That way if one is crooked, at least I have the other one. 50/50 anyway. Anybody that asks for money, I would tell them my advisors handle all of that for me. Money is tied up, I get an allowance just to live on so I don't blow it all. I have carefully planned this out. Now I just have to win. Yes, I am a big dreamer.

[mikefmich]

22 yrs ago I called my best friend in Fl to buy a lotto tx down there. it was up to 50 some odd million, a very large lottery at the time.

Surprisingly enough a good friend of hers won that lotto.....she was around her late 50's at the time. Sheila who I had met before, and talked to after, lived a pretty simple life. Cheap clothes from KMart, lived in a double wide, and sold real estate part time.

She was a saint. Put all but a half or quarter million dollars into a foundation, rented an office and started giving it away. Almost singlehandedly she built and supported a shelter for abused kids & woman.

Sat in the office, and would read thru requests of people begging for money. She had people who would investigate, and those who were real and really in need, she would give money to.

She stayed in the double wide, still bought cheap clothes, her only hint of luxury was either a Cadillac or Lincoln don't remember which.

But she did change in her mind. People besieged her in person for money. She became jumpy/jittery, suspicious of almost everyone except for those she knew, and became something of a recluse from society.

Sadly, she passed from cancer just a few years after winning. But by that time other than the smaller sum she kept, had nearly given it all away.

If there is a heaven, she is in it.