Ever find yourself saying, “I’d do that if I won the lottery?” Believe it or not, winning the lottery is actually not all fun and games. You have about a 1-in-292,201,338 chance of winning the jackpot – but maybe you wouldn’t want to as much as you think.

Those lucky enough to be one in a million have some lottery winner horror stories that will make you think twice before playing your lucky numbers.

8 Lottery Winner Horror Stories

Maybe you’d want to go on vacation? Maybe you’d want to eat the world’s priciest food? After reading these lottery stories, though, maybe you’d just want to invest in some old-fashioned stocks instead.

Billie Bob Harrell Jr.

Like anyone who wins the lottery, Billie Bob Harrell Jr. thought winning the money was an answer to his prayers. He used the first installment of his $31 million to help dig himself out of the debt he had accrued trying to support his wife and three children.

He went about donating large sums of money to his church and buying houses and cars for family and friends. All this spending started to result in strangers calling him and demanding donations from him, so much so that he had to change his number.

He committed suicide a year after he and his wife separated, but before that he informed a financial advisor that “Winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

Keith Gough

When Keith Gough won $14 million in 2005, he quit his job at a bakery and started drinking out of boredom. Gough went to rehab for his drinking problem, where he met a man by the name of James Prince.

Unfortunately, Prince was a con-man who coerced Gough to let him into his bank account, saying he was investing in business deals. Gough, however, died in 2010 of a heart attack said to be caused by stress and drinking.

Michael Carroll

Michael Carroll is an example of what not to do when you win $15.5 million dollars, and a great addition to a list lottery winner horror stories. When he won, he started spending the money on $3,000 worth of cocaine every day and having extravagant parties at his home.

To make a long story short, Carroll ran out of money. Now he works in a cookie factory and makes $300 a week, which he says makes him happier than the large sum of money that he once had.

Tonda Lynn Dickerson

Tonda Lynn Dickerson won $10 million from the lottery, but had a bunch of other people who thought they did too – her coworkers at the restaurant where she worked had agreed to split the winnings if any of them ever won. She was sued by them, but actually won.

She was then sued by her boss, who said she had promised him a new car. The IRS also fought her for giving her family a gift through a corporation she set up to protect herself after all that suing, and took $1 million in taxes. It’s enough to make you think there’s such a thing as a lottery curse.

Andrew Whittaker

Andrew Whittaker already had $17 million of his own when he won $315 million in the lottery in 2002. He gave large amounts away to charity, but was robbed multiple times. While that misfortune was happening, his granddaughter and her boyfriend, and his daughter, all died in tragic ways.

Only four years after winning, he was completely out of money. Still, in 2016, his house caught on fire, so he might just be cursed with bad luck.

Jeffrey Dampier

In 1996, Jeffrey Dampier won $20 million. Soon after, he got divorced and split the money halfway with his wife. Two years after his divorce he married Crystal Jackson, and the couple moved from Illinois to Tampa Bay.

He invested much of his money into a popcorn business, and used more of the funds to move Crystal’s two sisters to Tampa Bay. Dampier began having an affair with Victoria Jackson, his sister-in-law.

Victoria Jackson lured Dampier to her house and, with her boyfriend, tied Dampier up and shot him, allegedly to rob him of his money. In her trial, Victoria Jackson said it was because Dampier started a relationship with her when she was fifteen, but she was sentenced to life.

Abraham Shakespeare

With a name like Abraham Shakespeare, you’ve gotta expect your life to be a little extraordinary – but Shakespeare’s life was cut tragically short after he won the $30 million jackpot in 2009. Residing in Florida, he was shot twice buy DeeDee Moore, a woman who only struck up a friendship with Shakespeare after his lottery win.

Shakespeare was shot sometime in April of 2009. He wasn’t found until January 2010, buried in a backyard under a slab of cement. Moore was sentenced to life after being found guilty of the crime, her motivation said to have been swindling Shakespeare out of his money – even though he had been known to simply give away much of the money when people just asked for it.

Shakespeare’s brother, Robert Brown, said that Shakespeare often said, “I’d have been better off broke.”

Sandra Hayes

Sandra Hayes wrote the book How Winning the Lottery Changed My Life after winning the $224 million Powerball and splitting it with a dozen coworkers. The book mainly takes her audience through the emotional pain that comes when your family and friends turn into “vampires trying to suck the life out of me.”

She says that it’s difficult to endure the way that people become full of greed when they look at you and see a means to get money. But maybe you’re still not convinced that winning the lotto is all bad, and you want to test your luck. You can discover more about it here, learn what the estimated prize winning of the week is, and buy your own tickets.

Life’s What You Make It

Now that you’ve had your fill of lottery winner horror stories, maybe you need a break from all the madness. Find out how to make your life better, without having to rely on winning millions of dollars.

Maybe you do need a little cash, though – there’s ways out there that you probably haven’t tried yet.

Whatever you do, we hope we don’t have to tell you twice. Winning the lotto isn’t everything, as you can see by the stories you’ve just witnessed. We can be happy with the life we lead, without the windfall of millions.