27 August 2023 , 16:37
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Despite hoping for a life of comfort, one 'lucky' lottery winner ended up bankrupt and even had his brother hire a contract killer against him.
In the years following his $16.2 million win William "Bud" Post III, 66, also saw multiple divorces and estrangement from family members.
Mr Post had a difficult childhood. He was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. His mum died when he was just eight and his dad sent him to an orphanage. He grew up taking odd jobs and never owned a home or a new car.
That all changed in 1988, when he had just $2.46 left in his bank account. He pawned one of his last few possessions - a ring - for $40 and gave the money to Ann Karpik, his landlady and occasional girlfriend, so she could buy 40 tickets in the state lottery. Among the tickets was the winning one.
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Mr Post's life turned sour after the lottery win (Supplied)Just two weeks after getting the first of 26 annual payments of $497,953.47, he had already spent $300,000. He set his siblings up in various businesses from a Florida restaurant to a used-car lot. He also bought a plane, although he did not have a pilot's licence.
Within three months, he was half a million dollars in debt. Within a year he was estranged from his siblings.
He later bought a mansion in Oil City, Pennsylvania, for $395,000 and wanted to upgrade it but it didn't go well. Instead he was hit by a number of legal and civil problems including a county court ordering him to stay away from his sixth wife after he shot her car.
Then his former landlady/ girlfriend sued him for a portion of the winnings, saying they had agreed to split them. Mr Post fought it but three years later a judge ruled he owed her a third of all proceeds. But by then his money troubles were almost crippling. He couldn't cough up the money and in 1992, a judge ordered his lottery payments frozen.
"Everybody dreams of winning money, but nobody realises the nightmares that come out of the woodwork, or the problems," he said in 1993. Visitors to his mansion in Oil City noted a pool filled with rubble, plywood over the windows and a broken security system.
He would bumble around the decrepit 16-room home. He once complained: "I was much happier when I was broke."
In 1996 he had had enough and tried to auction off the rest of the lottery payments along with his mansion in a hope to clear his bills. He told the Guardian: "Once I'm no longer a lottery winner, people will leave me alone. That's all I want. Just peace of mind."
Except he could not stop his wild spending, eating through his nest egg on two homes, a truck, two Harleys and a sailboat.
HIs brother even tried to hire a contract murderer to kill him and his sixth wife. After his various legal troubles had been cleared he came out with $1m which, in true fashion, he spent.
He served time in prison for an assault conviction where he had shot at a debt collector visiting his crumbling mansion. By the time of his release he was reportedly living on a $450-per-month disability check.
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On January 15 2006 he died of respiratory disease. He was survived by his seventh wife and nine children with his second wife.