Winner: Jack Whittaker
Prize amount: $315 million
The Curse: On Christmas Day, 2002, Jack Whittaker got a Christmas present so good, it’d make you feel cheated by the new Mac Book you got -- $315 million in the Powerball Lottery. (That could buy, like 300,000 Mac Books, in case you needed some unfathomable number to help you grasp that amount.) Quickly after he received his lump sum of $114 million, he was arrested for drunk driving, then thieves broke into his car when he was parked at a strip club, stealing $545,000 that he liked to carry in a briefcase. In December 2003, he was arrested for threatening the life of a bar manager, and before the year was over, his 17-year-old granddaughter, Brandi Bragg, had a drug overdose and was found dead in Whittaker’s home. Whittaker’s daughter Ginger was found dead in her home on 2009. He later shocked no one, saying, “I wished I’d torn that ticket up.” [ABC]
