One of the more common stories you hear about a lucky lottery winner is just how unlucky they became after winning a life-changing amount of money. Erratic spending and poor decision making has made many a lottery-winner lose their newfound wealth, and they are often the first stories you hear when it comes to the fates of lottery jackpot winners.
Hearing the good stories is a far less common occurrence, perhaps because we don’t the feeling of jealously when it comes to people that have struck it lucky in the lottery. That doesn’t mean there aren’t heart-warming stories out there regarding lottery winners – quite the opposite in fact.
Check out a few stories about how lottery winners spent their money that will restore you faith in humanity:
Winner Donates Almost All of Her Wealth to Her Community
As an unemployed women earning only £57 a week in benefits, Margaret Loughrey of Strabane, Northern Ireland didn’t take the decision to spend money on a EuroMillions lottery ticket lightly. Yet this small gamble earned her a massive reward, as she won £27 million.
You could be forgiven for thinking someone who was recently unemployed would treat themselves to a few extravagant purchases, but Margaret decided to only keep £1million of her winnings and donated the remaining £26 million.
Most of this was used to create jobs and renovate areas of her town. She has become the director of nine local companies and her town was the recipient of £1 million to help transform the area into a tourist hotspot, which lead to further job creations.
As explained in her own words: “Everyone has the right to work for a living, to support their families, to buy their own home, to run their own business. People just need to be given opportunities.”
Winner of Canadian Lottery Donates His Entire winnings to Charity
Tom Christ is a Canadian businessman that probably never needed to even win the Lotto Max in his native Canada. He previously sold his electrical business for a cool CAD$1.14 billion, so it’s safe to say he was financially secure.
He happened to still have a lotto subscription and thought no harm in renewing his yearly subscription – this proved to be a great idea as he scooped CAD$40 million in the Lotto Max Jackpot. While you would imagine him to be ecstatic about adding to his already impressive wealth, Tom had recently lost his best friend and wife Jan to cancer.
This led him to donate all $40 million of his winnings to various cancer charities has he knew he didn’t need the money himself. The Tom Baker Centre in Calgary was the first recipient of his amazing donations, having been the treatment centre use by his late wife.
A Homeless Man Who Won the Lottery and Spent it Helping Others
László Andraschek was a homeless man living in Hungary who decided to chance his luck and spent the last of his money on a ticket for the national lottery. This netted him a massive win of Ft630 million (roughly $2.8million) when he won the jackpot in September of 2013.
He didn’t spend his money frivolously however, rather deciding to make an impressive sized donation to hostels aimed at helping homeless people. His goodwill never stopped there, as he paid off all the debts of his entire family and bought his three children a house and car each.
He continues to plan on using his remaining wealth for good causes that help the homeless, addicts and women affected by abuse. Staying so humble despite newfound wealth is always great to hear, and as László says himself: – “I have become rich but I have not become a different person. I could buy a large-screen TV because I can afford it, but I won’t buy three because I can afford it,” he told the Guardian.
