Tragic wins: Lottery jackpots that broke families

We'd like to believe that winning the lottery is one of the greatest things that could ever happen to us. That with millions of dollars in our bank account, we could pay all our bills, live out our wildest dreams, and take care of the family and friends who are closest to us.

Unfortunately, a massive lottery jackpot is just as likely to tear a family apart as it is to bring them together, even if the winner gives millions to their loved ones.

Time and again, we've seen how a sudden massive fortune can bring out the worst in those closest to the winner, and it doesn't take much for family members to go from celebrating to fighting after a big lottery win.

These are true stories of families that were torn apart after one member won the lottery.

Addiction leads to theft

In 2023, Luke McGann of Ireland was deep in debt as he tried to support his debilitating drug addiction. He owed his dealers huge sums of money, and with no cash of his own, he was terrified of what would happen to him if he couldn't pay back the money he had borrowed.

He thought he had found a way out when he learned that his grandmother's partner had won €87,000 (equivalent to $90,946) in the Irish national lottery. The only problem was that the man didn't have a bank account to deposit the money. McGann offered to help him set one up, but while doing so, he linked the account to his own Apple Pay, so that he could withdraw money from it whenever he needed to.

Over a period of three weeks, McGann withdrew the equivalent of $15,561 from the man's account in 24 separate transactions to repay his drug debts. Unfortunately for McGann, it didn't take long for his grandmother's partner to notice that someone was quickly depleting his account, and he contacted the authorities, who investigated the theft.

Since McGann was the only other person with access to the account, investigators quickly determined he was the one withdrawing the funds. In October 2023, McGann surrendered to police and confessed to stealing the money.

He claimed that initially, he had taken the money under threat from the drug dealers he owed, but that even after paying them off, he continued to steal and make purchases for himself, such as a new motorcycle.

Prosecutors charged McGann with 24 counts of theft, one charge for every time he removed money from the man's account. However, Judge Orla Crowe considered that he had voluntarily surrendered and confessed to his crimes. She told McGann that his crime represented a “huge lapse of judgment by a very young man who has since shown insight and remorse.”

She sentenced him to 12 months in prison, but suspended the sentence, allowing him to go free as long as he didn't commit any more crimes. For his victim's part, the bank agreed to make full restitution of all the money that McGann stole from him.

Thunder down under

John Bampton of Queensland, Australia, was 92 when he won AUD986,210 (equivalent to $642,664) playing the TattsLotto. Shortly after winning, he made what at the time appeared to be a generous gesture and gave his daughter, Suzanne Vourlides, the equivalent of AUD195,051, just under one-third of his total winnings.

From there, however, things went sour for Bampton and his family. Shortly after giving his daughter the money, Bampton said he regretted his decision and demanded that she transfer the cash back to him.

When Vourlides refused, he sued her in civil court, seeking a court order compelling her to return it. The dispute came down to an alleged promise made by Brampton to give each of his two children AUD195,051.

Vourlides showed that Bampton purchased a property with part of his winnings and listed his son, Larry Bampton, as a co-owner, while excluding Vourlides. John Bampton told his daughter that he left her name off the property because he did not want her husband to have access to his money.

Bampton even rewrote his will to say that none of his estate would go to his daughter until her husband died. He claims he only gave Vourlides the money because she cornered him in his kitchen and demanded he send it to her. He told the court that he felt so intimidated that he gave his daughter her share of the prize.

His daughter disputed her father's story, and the presiding judge, Suzanne Sheridan, also noted that Bampton appeared to be far less timid than his daughter. Sheridan said that "Mr. Bampton was a strong and forceful personality," and she doubted if Vourlides was capable of bullying him.

Ultimately, Judge Sheridan dismissed Bampton's case, ruling that Bampton's two children had received equivalent amounts of the lottery prize.

In a statement to reporters, Mark Treherne, Vourlides' lawyer, stated:

The judgment speaks for itself, and Her Honour comprehensively dealt with all the issues that were agitated by the parties.

While Vourlides can keep the money for now, her father has vowed to appeal the ruling against him.

$26 million worth of regret

You would think that giving your family members millions of dollars after you've won the lottery would create some peace and harmony at your next Thanksgiving dinner. But in the case of Gillian Bayford of Scotland, you would be wrong.

Bayford's journey to family discord began when she won £148 million (equivalent to $247 million) from the EuroMillions lottery in 2012. Fifteen months after winning, she divorced her husband, and they split the massive jackpot in half.

The divorce would turn out to be the easy part of dealing with her family. Bayford claimed that despite giving her parents and brother the equivalent of $26 million, they were dissatisfied with her generosity and still wanted more. She says that her dad attempted to take control of her fortune and even claimed a stake in her business.

Speaking to reporters in 2016, Bayford said, “It's upsetting and raw. The money was supposed to make everybody happy. But it's made them demanding and greedy. They (my family) have lost touch with where they've come from.”

She said her generosity started when she gave her father and brother just under one million dollars to pay off debts they had accumulated from a series of failed business ventures. Next, she purchased a home for her parents, who were broke and living in a camper at the time of her win.

My dad and brother had debts of £700,000 on the day we won. That was the first thing we paid for. Adrian's (her ex-husband) family had to wait weeks, but my parents and brother were first. They got their cars and houses before anyone.

She says her parents pressured her to give another million dollars to her brother so that he could start a new business. Still, after receiving the money, he stopped speaking with her and even got married without inviting her.

Bayford feels that all the support she's given her family has brought out the worst in them.

“They're rubbing people's noses in it by flashing their cash, which I think is downright nasty,” Gillian told reporters in 2016. She added that she didn't think she would speak to her family again.

Every word that comes out of their mouths is a lie. I wish them a happy life, but there will be no reconciliation now.

Million-dollar heist

If you can't win one million dollars, then the next best thing is to steal it. At least, that was the flawed logic for one woman, who was so jealous of her cousin's lottery fortune that she tried to take it for herself.

This grand misadventure began with a half-baked plan by an anonymous New York lottery player, who wanted to protect his identity after winning $1,000,000 from a $5 "Hold 'Em Poker" instant win game he purchased from a 7-11 in Glen Cove, New York, in 2020.

In New York, lottery winners cannot stay anonymous; however, they can claim their prizes through an LLC to protect their identity. Instead of going to the trouble of creating an LLC, the winner reached out to his cousin, Iris Amador Argueta, who lived in Virginia.

The man told Argueta that he would pay her $50,000 if she would claim the prize in her name and hand over the money to him. Argueta agreed, and she filed the official claim for the money by mail, since New York Lottery Offices were closed for in-person claims during the COVID pandemic.

However, Argueta wasn't satisfied to receive just $50,000, and she decided to take the full amount. She showed up on her cousin's doorstep with fake lottery paperwork and told him that his ticket was only worth $20,000.

She then handed him an envelope containing $13,436 in cash, claiming the rest of the money had been withheld for taxes. It wasn't a bad plan, but it contained one key flaw. The entire reason Argueta's cousin contacted her in the first place is that he didn't want his name publicly linked with the win.

After she left, he looked up his prize and saw her name listed alongside a million-dollar prize, which she had taken as a lump sum worth $537,440. He contacted his cousin to ask her to return the rest of the money, but she claimed she didn't have it and said she would call the police on him if he kept bothering her.

The man reached out to the Glen Cove police, who quickly unraveled his cousin's scheme and arrested her on charges of Grand Larceny in the second degree. She pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to 1.5 to 4 years in state prison.

Fortunately for the real winner, the police were able to find and return his prize money.

In a statement to the press, District Attorney Anne Donnelly said:

This defendant thought she hit the jackpot when she passed off her cousin's $1 million winning scratch-off ticket as her own and claimed a lump sum payout of more than $500,000. But her greedy actions also spelled the end of her luck, and now she will serve time in prison for her crime.

Smoke 'em up. Smash 'em up.

There's no law stating that you have to share your lottery money with your family; however, you should be prepared for the consequences if you don't show any generosity to those closest to you.

Alex Robertson Sr. was part of a 12-person lottery-buying group in England that scored big when it won a £38 million (equivalent to $50 million) Euromillions jackpot in 2012.

After taxes, Alex Sr's share of the prize was £3.1 million ($4.1 million). His two adult sons, Alex Jr and William Robertson, expected that their father would share his good fortune with them, but he had other ideas.

According to Alex Jr., his father told his sons that he wasn't giving them any of his money and instead gave his son a carton of 200 cigarettes. At the same time, he flaunted his wealth by purchasing a new home and two new cars that he parked in the driveway.

The display of wealth was too much for his sons to handle, so they took their revenge by attacking their father's new cars with claw hammers. Alex Jr told reporters:

We walked up his driveway at 11 o'clock at night and put two claw hammers through the windows of the car. We then reported ourselves to the police. This lottery win was the worst thing that ever happened to us — it ripped our families apart.

Prosecutors charged the brothers with harassment, but the case against them was dismissed when Alex Sr. refused to fly back to England from his new home in Spain to testify against them. So that's at least one favor he did for his sons since he won.