Many
years ago (alas, many many years ago) I did dream the
winning lotto numbers and actually got out of bed and wrote
the 6 numbers down so I wouldn't forget them the next morning
as is always the case. I NEVER dream about gambling and winning
so to me it was a notable occurrence. I have taken those six
numbers in every draw Monday through Saturday ever since and,
as you would expect, have never come close. I now need to
crack a second division prize to break square and if I'm not
at the newsagents on a Monday morning to take that week's
entries, he sends a taxi round to my place to get me!
Well,
that may not necessarily be 100% truthful - but 90% of it
is. I know. This week may be the week. What are the six numbers
that haven't saluted in sequence since 1976? You've gotta
be joking if you think I would reveal that! Here are some
more interesting yarns:
Winning Lotto Twice:
Many
successful lottery entrants have said their winning combinations
came to them in dreams; that they awoke with five or six numbers
dancing in their heads, jotted the combinations down, played
them, and won.
Sometimes the dreamed-of numbers paid off right away, and
sometimes the dreamers played those combinations for years
before hitting the jackpot.
So, that 86-year-old Mary Wollens of Toronto won the Ontario
Lottery on 30 September 2006 after seeing "a lotto ticket
and a large cheque" in a dream a couple of days before
the drawing wasn't all that unusual — the remarkable
part was that her prophetic dream enabled her to win the same
lottery twice.
You
see, Mary had already purchased a lottery ticket with the
combination she later dreamed about, but her vision instilled
her with such confidence that she went out and bought a second
ticket with those same numbers.
As
things turned out, someone else had also correctly picked
all six numbers for that week's draw, so instead of having
to split the $24 million jackpot evenly with another winner,
Mary was able to claim a two-thirds share and take home $16
million!
Dashing
To Dead:
On
22 January 2004, 73-year-old Carl Atwood of Elwood, Indiana,
who won $73,450 in an Indiana lottery but died a few hours
later when he was knocked down by a truck while walking to
the grocery store that had sold him the winning ticket and
died shortly after in an Indianapolis hospital. The store,
incidentally, was just one block from his home.
"It
was at an unlighted intersection, and Mr. Atwood had dark
clothing on, so the driver did not see him before he hit him,"
Elwood Police Chief Toby R. Barker said.
Money does not buy happiness:
About
the biggest loser we read of was William "Bud" Post
of Pennsylvania who won $16.2 million in a lottery in 1988
and ended up living on Government benefits.
The
now deceased Post was reported as saying "I wish it never
happened. It was totally a nightmare".
Following his lucky day, a former girlfriend successfully
sued him for a share of his winnings and that wasn't his only
lawsuit. A brother was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill
him, hoping to inherit a share of the winnings. Other siblings
pestered him until he agreed to invest in a car business and
a restaurant in Sarasota, Florida and the two ventures that
brought no money back and further strained his relationship
with his siblings. Post even spent time in jail for firing
a gun over the head of a bill collector. Within a year, he
was $1 million in debt.
Post
admitted he was both careless and foolish, trying to please
his family. He eventually declared bankruptcy.
Just
before he die3d Post was living on $450 a month and food stamps.
"I'm tired, I'm over 65 years old, and I just had a serious
operation for a heart aneurysm. Lotteries don't mean (anything)
to me," said Post. He died shortly after.
Death
by misadventure:
In
April 1995 an English guy by the name of Timothy O'Brien committed
suicide by shooting himself in the head because his half-share
of a five-week ticket on Britain's (then) new National Lottery
had expired just before the draw he thought would have made
him a multi-millionaire.
The
truth is, even if he'd held a valid ticket for his usual numbers,
O'Brien wouldn't have won. The numbers that came up would
have entitled the ticket holders to a prize of 47 pounds,
not the 3.2 million he thought he and his partner had missed
out on.
Why?
Because only four of the six numbers matched those drawn not
the six he MISTAKENLY believed were his.
A
leopard never changes his spots:
When
Michael Caroll in the UK turned up to collect his lotto win
wearing an electronic offenders tag the end of the story should
have been immediately obvious.
After
winning, he used his money on drugs, gambling, and "thousands
of prostitutes" only to end up back on the dole after
eight years of living the Lotto life.
Carroll
later told the Daily Mail "The party has ended and it's
back to reality. I haven't got two pennies to rub together
and that's the way I like it. I find it easier to live off
£42 dole than a million." After winning the lottery
his wife left him and taking their daughter with her, and
he blew £100,000 over eight years in payments to prostitutes,
among other rather grave financial mistakes.
The
ultimate on line casino cop out (From The Daily Mail, June
15.2012)
A
gambler who thought he had won £650,000 online has today
been told he will not get any of his 'winnings' - because
the web site's software had a bug.
Bruno Venturi, 41, was 'euphoric' after turning the €20
in his account into a whopping €707,000 - then worth
roughly £650,000 - whilst playing Eurobet.com's 'Sixty
Seconds' game in 2009.
But today he was told his windfall was due only to the error.
Pet shop worker Mr Venturi said he felt
'cheated' after a High Court judge found that a computer virus
was covered under the web site's terms and conditions so
they could refuse to pay out.
As he had only paid for one in six of his 6,000 bets placed
over the course of the evening because of the glitch he could
not claim his prize.
Judge
Simon Brown QC, who had compared the case to the film ‘The
Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’, ruled the problems
caused by the virus constituted an accounting error, which
voided Mr Venturi’s winnings.
The film, inspired by a British music hall song based on the
story of Charles Deville Wells, is a romantic comedy which
tells the story of a former Russian aristocrat who wins 10million
francs playing baccarat at a casino.
The casino sends a beautiful woman to lure him back to the
gambling tables and he is eventually left penniless. The judge
said each time Mr Venturi placed a bet he entered into a separate
contract with the company.
The judge said: 'Of the more than 6,000 wager contracts he
made, he only paid for some of those contracts, and the true
state of his account is rather different,' he said.
'In
my judgment, this is a case where the claim must fail, and
I will give judgment for the defendant.'
Mr
Venturi came from Naples to London’s Royal Courts of
Justice this week after Eurobet UK Ltd withheld the prize
he won in less than four hours on the lottery-style 'Sixty
Seconds' game.
The company, part of the Gala Coral Group, claimed the software
bug meant he was charged for only one of every six multiple
bets he placed.
It
pointed to a clause which stated that any sum 'incorrectly
credited' to a player’s account will be recovered or
withdrawn.
