Regrets? Past lottery winners have had a few.
The Powerball jackpot has swelled to $1.8 billion, or an estimated $826.4 million in cash, a sum so vast that if no one wins on Saturday, and it climbs higher still, it could cross into record-setting territory.
It is the kind of prize, the second-largest in U.S. history, that sends people to corner stores and gas stations to buy tickets, which are then folded into a wallet or tucked into a glove compartment.
While there have been plenty of stories of lottery winners being murdered or wishing they had torn up the ticket, some have fared better.
Ahead of the drawing on Saturday night, some past lottery winners share their hard lessons learned and advice for those who might hold a lucky ticket.
In Iowa, in 1999, Timothy Schultz was at home when his father woke him with the news: The winning ticket came from the gas station where Mr. Schultz worked as a clerk.
In an interview, Mr. Schultz recalled waking up in a panic and not being able to find the ticket.
He said he rummaged through his desk and shuffled through old papers in his room. Finally, he discovered the ticket crumpled in a pocket of his jeans.
He then found a copy of The Des Moines Register and compared the numbers on his ticket to those in the newspaper. He learned that the quick-pick Powerball numbers on his ticket, chosen randomly by computer, matched. He had won $28 million.
Mr. Schultz, who now has a podcast, “Lottery, Dreams and Fortune,” where he interviews lottery winners, said that the majority of guests he’s talked to won by letting the computer randomly pick their numbers.
Still, he recommended choosing the approach that best suits you. Whether it’s letting the computer pick your numbers or choosing ones for yourself, trying to find the winning combination is part of the fun, he said.
Mr. Schultz cautioned that when the time comes to hire someone to mind your millions, don’t be swayed by smooth talkers who simply claim the title. What you want is a financial adviser with the hard-earned experience to back it up.
“If I had a dime for every person that called themselves a financial adviser and wanted to help, I would be a billionaire by now,” he said.
About a decade earlier in Pennsylvania, William Post paid the price for his mistake. In 1988, he won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery. He bought houses, cars and a plane, and within a year, the money was gone.
Relatives demanded some. His landlord and sometime girlfriend sued. His own brother tried to have him killed, according to his obituary in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2006.
“Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realizes the nightmares that come out of the woodwork, or the problems,” he said in 1993, The Washington Post reported.
In Missouri, in 2016, Bradley Hahn scratched the silvery film from a $40 lottery ticket and saw the winning numbers that meant he had won $10 million. He stood in the store, stunned, but remained calm.
He could then pay off his debts. But next came the purchases: a midnight blue 2015 Corvette Stingray, his dream car at the time, and a 2016 Cadillac SRX that gleamed. Both cars lost thousands of dollars in value almost immediately.
“I probably would have financed them instead,” Mr. Hahn said.
Friends appeared, some to celebrate, some with open hands. The more he gave, the more they expected.
“It got to the point where I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m not a bank,’” he said in an interview.
These days, Mr. Hahn said he’s learned to keep the circle of people around him small.
And he remembers the warning of another winner, a friend who won $3 million and lost everything.
“Stay away from gambling,” said Mr. Hahn, who declined to disclose how much of his winnings he still has. “You already won. Don’t risk it.”
In Illinois in 2012, Urooj Khan had little time to consider such decisions. He won $1 million from a scratch-off ticket. A month later, poisoned with cyanide, he died.
The police investigated his death as a homicide, but no arrests were ever made.
In Arkansas, in the summer of 2022, Judy Dudley sat in her living room with her granddaughter who was visiting from Texas. The lottery numbers flickered across the screen. Ms. Dudley checked her ticket once, twice, then a third time.
“Oh my God,” Ms. Dudley recalled shouting at the time. She had won $2 million.
Ms. Dudley won on a Friday so she had to wait until the state lottery office in Little Rock, Ark., opened on Monday.
The ticket went into her wallet. That night, her husband made her sleep with it under her pillow until they could drive to the lottery office to claim it.
“I was 99.9 percent sure,” she said, “but I still needed the state to tell me.”
The couple, who were retired, had no debt at the time that they won the jackpot. They built a garage her husband had long wanted, and placed the rest of the money with a financial adviser.
“It’s been great,” she said. Her advice? “If you don’t buy a ticket, you can’t win.”
And so the jackpot drawing awaits.
Somewhere, a winning ticket might be placed on a kitchen counter or under a pillow.
Mark Walker is an investigative reporter for The Times focused on transportation. He is based in Washington.
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