Why powerball winner wished he 'tore up ticket' after winning $315,000,000
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: Michael Appleton/NY Daily News via Getty
The man who won the world's largest lottery payout revealed his regret after his life spiralled downhill almost immediately after being paid.
$315 million is a lot of money, but Andrew 'Jack' Whittaker was quick to start spending it, leading to a series of events that would ultimately see his life take a dramatic turn.
It all began on Christmas Eve 2002, when Whittaker bought a ticket for the Powerball at a grocery store in Hurricane, West Virginia.
Despite not being a regular gambler, Whittaker won $315m, adding to his $17m net worth, per The Mirror, thanks to his construction company.
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But because he chose to be paid in a lump sum instead of staggered, Whittaker suddenly had $113m after taxes at his disposal.
Almost immediately, he put $15m into the construction of two churches, set up his Jack Whittaker Foundation to help people with their financial struggles, began to gamble, slap money down in strip clubs and more.
Even though he allegedly told Fox News he was 'doing God's work with all this money' and that he was 'helping a lot of people and I plan to help a lot more,' his local strip club, Pink Pony, reportedly saw much of his winnings.
This led to multiple thefts of Whittaker's money as he supposedly wasn't shy about showing it off.
The bar manager at the time told the Washington Post of what he was afraid would happen, noting it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: "My worst nightmare was waking up in the morning and reading in the paper that Jack Whittaker got rolled [robbed] at the Pink Pony. I said, 'Please put that money away.'"
He later returned to Pink Pony and allegedly boasted about having a million in cash in his Lincoln parked outside, and soon, reports say he was then drugged, and his vehicle broken into.
Though the money was later recovered.
Five months later, he was robbed again at the club, and that was just the start.
Speaking to ABC News, he said he regretted it all, telling the outlet: "I pretty much lost everything I had and held dear in my life.
"Money has never meant anything to me. You have to have money to exist in this world, but money doesn't rule the world. Money is not what makes people happy."
Whittaker, added: "My wife said she wished she'd torn the ticket up and I wish I had torn the ticket up too. I just don't like what I've become."
Sadly, the spiral of Whittaker was fast, and came with a lot of loss.
The construction boss first lost his granddaughter, Brandi, who was 17 years old.
Apparently, he had been doting on her and giving her large sums of cash prior to her death.
She was found wrapped in a plastic trapline behind an abandoned van, as Rufus revealed: "He gave a crazy stipend to his 17-year-old granddaughter and that attracted some bad characters: nothing good came of it."
From there, things got worse.
Whittaker was pulled up on a lawsuit from Caesars Atlantic City casino after his failed to cover his huge gambling debts, and in 2008, his wife of 42 years, Jewell Whittaker filed for divorce.
In 2009, Brandi's mother passed away, Whittaker's daughter, and then in 2011, the Supreme Court determined Jewell could have a share of his business assets.
The end of his bad luck came as he passed away from natural causes at 72 in June, 2020.