{"id":43129,"date":"2016-11-24T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T08:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/?p=43129"},"modified":"2019-10-31T12:19:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T12:19:35","slug":"the-seven-best-lottery-winners-the-world-ever-saw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/the-seven-best-lottery-winners-the-world-ever-saw.html","title":{"rendered":"The Seven Best Lottery Winners the World Ever Saw"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of us fantasise about how we\u2019d spend a big lottery win. Apparently when it comes down to it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/2012\/12\/21\/lottery-millionaire-euromillions-britain_n_2344719.html\" target=\"_blank\">1 in 10 would spent it on plastic surgery<\/a>. We thought we\u2019d put together a list of seven people and how they spent their big money win.<\/p>\n<h3>Michael Carroll<\/h3>\n<p>Probably the most famous lottery winner in the UK, Michael Carroll spent his pay-out more lavishly and decadently than any of us would dare.<\/p>\n<p>Referred to as the \u2018Lotto Lout\u2019, he indulged all of his desires and who can blame him? No one could begrudge a person for wanting to splurge.<\/p>\n<p>A mansion, expensive cars, and parties, he even turned his garden into a banger racetrack for him and his mates. He spent his money the exact way you shouldn\u2019t, but the way we\u2019d all secretly want to.<\/p>\n<p>In the end it\u2019s all but gone, but Carroll isn\u2019t sad. Back working, he said he didn\u2019t have a single regret. <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/england\/8692401.stm?ls\" target=\"_blank\">In his own words<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019ve had fun, still got my properties, got two beautiful girls. What more could I ask for?\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Roy Gibney<\/h3>\n<p>When Roy Gibney won the lottery he acted in a similar way to others by splashing out on some luxury. That\u2019s not what makes him stand out though. We all love a down-to-earth lottery winner, and so, after 14 years of not working he got bored and went back to it.<\/p>\n<p>He set up a sheet metal business and he\u2019s been running it ever since. He also only owns one car, saying, \u201cyou can only drive one at a time, so there\u2019s no point in owning ten.\u201d Fair point.<\/p>\n<p>He also got into a bit of trouble for refusing to remove a vegetable patch he\u2019d set up for local disadvantaged kids. With no proper planning permission, he was eventually fined \u00a310.50. We\u2019re guessing that wasn\u2019t too much of a hit.<\/p>\n<h3>John Kutey<\/h3>\n<p>Across the pond in the States, we find lottery winner John Kutey. He shared a $319m jackpot with six other people. Not to be sniffed at that. So what do you do with all that cash? You build a waterpark obviously.<\/p>\n<p>In honour of his and his wife\u2019s parents, Kutey used $200k to rebuild a park in Green Island, New York. Having been around since the 1940s, it was in urgent need of repair and updating. With no tax money forthcoming, Kutey sorted it out himself.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually called Spray Park, you can\u2019t put a value on the enjoyment the local kids will get out of that place for the years to come.<\/p>\n<h3>Thea Bristow<\/h3>\n<p>Thea Bristow won a massive \u00a315m in the National Lottery in 2004. Tragically, 6 years later her husband Paul died of a heart attack. Paul himself was a generous man with his share of the winnings used to buy out his local team Torquay United, which stopped them from going under.<\/p>\n<p>Thea herself didn\u2019t have much interested in football but after her husband passed she kept involved with the club anyway, eventually becoming a director. She stood down from this role in 2015 and became lifetime president instead.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am afraid I will continue to be an ever-present sight and sound at Torquay&#8217;s matches, waving and clacking in what I hope is a presidential manner,&#8221; she said as she announced her resignation. What a lady.<\/p>\n<h3>Les Scadding<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/the-top-seven-footballer-7s.html\" target=\"_blank\">Another football related<\/a> spend here. Scadding picked up \u00a345.5m for himself in 2009. After sorting out his kids for life and donating to various charities, he decided to get involved in sport. A fan of Newport County A.F.C, he became their chairman in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it\u2019s a massive dream for plenty of people to run their own football club, but it\u2019s even better when you succeed at it. Less than a year after taking over, he took Newport to the Football League, the first time they\u2019d been there in 25 years.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s since resigned to spend more time in Barbados and there\u2019s something great about that. Swooping in, returning a club to past glories, and then riding off into the heat of a Caribbean sunset.<\/p>\n<h3>Allen and Violet Large<\/h3>\n<p>It\u2019s pretty common for lottery winners to give away some of their cash, but what about 98% of it? That\u2019s some next level generosity and it\u2019s exactly what Allen and Violet Large did. They won $11.2m back in 2010 and sent it off to various places such as the Red Cross and the hospitals that treated Violet\u2019s cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Even now Allen still gets lottery tickets despite Violet passing in 2011. What will he do with the money if he wins again you ask? He\u2019d give it away of course. As Allen put it himself, \u201cWhat you\u2019ve never had, you never miss.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Bob Erb<\/h3>\n<p>Erb is probably more famous for his pro-marijuana campaigning and donations, but one of his first acts after his $25m win was like something out of a film.<\/p>\n<p>Just a week before his lucky day he\u2019d been at a restaurant when he\u2019d started chatting to the owner, Cliff Luther. Luther mentioned his daughter had recently been diagnosed with cancer, while Erb sympathised as his son had been taken by the<br \/>\ndisease previously.<\/p>\n<p>So far just a couple of guys discussing some more negative parts of their lives, but within seven days Erb was back. He ordered a burger and some friends and handed over cheque for $10,000. He tells Luther to keep the change.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re big fans of the number 7 \u2013 it\u2019s the number of minutes that it takes on average to play our Sit and Go Hero game. Have you played yet? <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/en\/how-to-play\/school\/sit-go-single-table\/index\" target=\"_blank\">Play today!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Keep up to date with all things partypoker!<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Get all the latest partypoker updates from your favourite social media outlets. You can <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/partypoker\">Follow us on Twitter<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/partypoker\">Like us on Facebook<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of us fantasise about how we\u2019d spend a big lottery win. Apparently when it comes down to it, 1 in 10 would spent it on plastic surgery. We thought we\u2019d put together a list of seven people and how they spent their big money win. Michael Carroll Probably the most famous lottery winner<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/the-seven-best-lottery-winners-the-world-ever-saw.html\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":43130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1308,2182],"tags":[1111,1109,1110,187,200,880],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43131,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43129\/revisions\/43131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43129"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.partypoker.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=43129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}