One in Six NFL Players Goes Bankrupt Within 12 Years of Retirement

[Rmfnlt]

Bernie Madox?

 

[Prime Time]

my mom told me there was no money in skate boards, dirt bikes, and video games....sheesh!

My parents told me there was no money in being a musician. They were right unless you get lucky and are in the top 1%. Then there's MC Hammer. A clascis example of what not to do with your money.

http://www.supercompressor.com/home/why-mc-hammer-went-broke-how-mc-hammer-spent-all-of-his-money

EVERYTHING MC HAMMER BLEW HIS FORTUNE ON
POSTED ON 3/30/14 BY JOE MCGAULEY

Grandmaster of parachute pants and overspending, MC Hammer turns 51 today. But, rather than get him a present, we’ve opted to gift something to you: a roundup of all the crazy stuff he blew his $30+ million fortune on in just a few short years. Happy Birthday, Hammer!

Born Stanley Kirk Burrell in Oakland, California, he had his first taste of fame at age 11 as a bat boy and clubhouse assistant for the Oakland A’s. Reggie Jackson nicknamed him Hammer for his resemblance to Hank Aaron, a.k.a. “The Hammer." It stuck.

He got into the hip hop game and formed a Christian rap group before going solo and signing with Capitol Records, rocketing to stardom and wealth with Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em, the first hip hop album to sell over ten million copies. At his peak in 1991, he was earning upwards of $33 million a year. But in a flash, it all disappeared. Here’s why.

An epic entourage and staff.
He kept a staff of 200 people on the payroll to handle pretty much everything you can imagine, and notoriously rolled with an entourage 40 deep — paying out a staggering $500,000 per month to support everybody. Hammerpants don’t launder themselves, people!

The mansion.
Not content to settle for some sprawling estate that already existed, he broke ground — in the hills above the rough neighborhood he grew up in — on a 40,000 square foot house that would end up costing him $30 million. It earned the price tag with a litany of added touches like gold-plated gates, two swimming pools, Italian marble floors…...a recording studio, 17-car garage, 33-seat theater, baseball diamond, and multiple tennis courts. That’s not counting the millions upon millions he spent to furnish the place with rare antiques.

Thoroughbreds.
In 1991, he established Oaktown Stable, which would eventually house his 19 thoroughbred racehorses, including Dance Floor, a colt that finished 3rd in the ‘92 Kentucky Derby. Considering horses of such caliber regularly sell for millions apiece, this wasn’t a cheap endeavor.

Rides.
He dropped a mint on transportation that included a Lamborghini, private jet, two private helicopters, and a stretch limo, because it’s the nineties.

Lawsuits.
Significantly less glamorous than everything else on this list, he became embroiled in several copyright infringement lawsuits at peak fame — most notably with Rick James, who claimed he ripped off the iconic “Super Freak” bass riff in “U Can’t Touch This” (he did). Hammer eventually settled by giving him a co-writer credit and forking over a massive cut of the royalties. He also ended up settling out of court with another composer, who sued him for ripping off one of his songs.

Having blown through his ample fortune, Hammer filed for bankruptcy in 1996 with a staggering debt of over $13 million and was forced to sell off his house for a fraction of what he spent to build it. Eventually, he rebranded himself as a minister — a gig that helped pay the bills for a while — and has more recently dipped his toe into the startup waters as a consultant for eight different tech companies. Protip: hire someone you trust to manage your money the moment you come into it. Also, maybe skip the gold-plated gates.
***********************************************
As others here have mentioned, people blow their money in most if not all professions.

http://business.time.com/2012/02/16/top-9-celebrity-bankruptcies/

So … Where’d All That Money Go?
By Josh Sanburn @joshsanburn

Getty Images
It’s an old story by now: An actor makes it big, starts raking in piles of money, spends it foolishly, goes into debt and winds up declaring bankruptcy. It’s as much of a Hollywood ending today as a classic movie kiss. The latest celeb to go broke is actor Gary Busey, who filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week. Papers show that he has less than $50,000 and debts of up to $1 million.

The 67-year-old Busey has appeared in dozens of films over the past several decades and was a regular in shows like “Gunsmoke” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.” But over the years, Busey mishandled his finances and now owes money he can’t pay to the IRS, the UCLA Medical Facility, Wells Fargo and others. According to a statement by Busey’s manager, the bankruptcy follows “past unfortunate choices, associations, events and circumstances that visited themselves upon this great American icon.” Busey, of course, is just one in a long line of celebs who have managed their money so poorly that they’ve had to file for bankruptcy. Here are 10 of the most notorious.

Forget Turtle and Johnny Drama. MC Hammer had an entourage for the ages: a 200-person crew that reportedly cost him $500,000 every month. To be fair, who else was going to wash all of those Hammer pants? Not to mention there was probably a lot of housework to be done in Hammer’s $30 million mansion. Back in 1990, spending that much cash on a house might not have seemed so crazy. According to Forbes, Hammer pulled in $33 million after his Diamond-selling album Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em was released.

It only took six years before he found himself in bankruptcy court claiming assets of $9.6 million compared to debts of $13.7 million. He even owed $500,000 to NFL-star-turned-analyst Deion “Prime Time” Sanders. While Hammer has recovered to, among others things, help start a new search engine called WireDoo, the sting of his bankruptcy lives on. In 2010, the most lopsided beef in rap history played out when Jay-Z joked about Hammer’s financial troubles on Kanye West’s song “So Appalled,” prompting Hammer to release a music video on YouTube featuring a Jay-Z lookalike running away from the Devil.

Between 1985, when he made his professional debut at age 18, to his retirement two decades later, “Iron” Mike Tyson made somewhere between $300 million and $400 million. At the height of his career, a single fight was worth $30 million. But during that time, Kid Dynamite bought mansions, cars and Bengal tigers. In late 2003, Tyson walked into a Las Vegas jewelry store and bought a $174,000 gold chain with 80 carats in diamonds. Eight months later, Tyson filed for bankruptcy.

The New York Times reported that he was $23 million in debt, owing the U.S. and British governments $17 million in taxes, three-quarters of a million dollars to seven law firms and $300,000 for limo services. Tyson later appeared in a cameo in the hit comedy “The Hangover,” which parodied his high-flying lifestyle. But the former champ also appeared on “The View,” where he told the hosts he was living paycheck to paycheck but had found happiness with his third wife. “I’m totally destitute and broke,” Tyson said. “But I have an awesome life.”

American original Willie Nelson was a pioneer of the “outlaw country” movement of the 1960s and ’70s, but the ’80s saw the singer become a real outlaw — in the eyes of the IRS. For much of the decade, Nelson funneled his income into a tax shelter later deemed illegal by the agency. His tax bill totaled $16.7 million and forced the government to seize his assets in 1990, including his Texas ranch.

Nelson eventually helped settle the debt by releasing a compilation album The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories?, the revenue from which he shared with the feds. The singer, however, was able to keep his head up throughout, saying, “I had a lot of things I owned, I needed to get rid of,” he said. “I had a lot of people around and needed to back off and stop supporting half the world so I could stop and look at my situation. It’s given me time to take inventory.”

Before he created the Magic Kingdom and built one of the largest movie production companies in the world, Walt Disney owned and operated an animation company called Laugh-O-Gram Studios. Based in Kansas City, the company created animated fairy tales that were shown in local theaters. The Laugh-O-Grams became popular, leading Disney to seek a financial backer to support the endeavor.

But as luck would have it, the backing firm went broke and Laugh-O-Grams went bankrupt. While he tried to save his venture by living in his office and eating beans from a can, he eventually closed the studio. Looking for a turn in fortune, Disney scrapped together enough money for a bus ticket and went to Hollywood, where he was able to make a very successful fresh start.

The legendary talk-show host could have used his famous suspenders to hold up a wooden barrel. As any journalist will tell you, work in media doesn’t always pay the bills, and Larry King’s first gig in radio was no exception. As a fledgling Miami radio announcer in the 1960s, King made no secret that he was “flying high,” despite the paltry salary that came along with the gig. But his money management troubles came to a head when he was arrested in 1971 and charged with grand larceny for allegedly stealing $5,000 from his business partner, Wall Street financier Louis Wolfson.

The charges were eventually dropped, but the dark mark on his career wasn’t, as he was fired from his radio jobs. King wouldn’t hold a regular journalism job for more than four years, dropping him deeper into debt, to the tune of $352,000, and forcing him to declare bankruptcy in 1978. That same year King was offered a late-night talk radio show in Washington, D.C., that eventually became his hugely successful eponymous CNN television show, which ran for 25 years.

Jerry Lee Lewis’s career is now in its seventh decade, so it’s no surprise that the “The Killer’s” career has had a few ups and downs. Lewis was kicked out of bible college for “playing the piano his own way,” but made it to Memphis just in time to get signed by the legendary owner of Sun Records Sam Phillips. Soon after, Lewis released two smash singles — “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” which helped launch rock n’ roll into the mainstream.

However, Lewis’s scandalous marriage to his 13-year-old second cousin soon caused his career to all but collapse. He returned to the charts in the 1960s, trading in rock n’ roll for country, but in 1988, he filed for bankruptcy, listing $3 million in medical, personal and tax debts. But the music icon has rebounded once more, and at age 76, he’s still touring and is currently one of the subjects of the hit Broadway musical “Million Dollar Quartet.”

The 27-year-old alleged golddigger thought her 90-year-old husband would leave her a hefty sum when he passed away in 1995 after their marriage of just over a year. But when oil mogul J. Howard Marshall II bequeathed $0 to Anna Nicole Smith, Smith’s bank account read the same amount. She sued his $1.6 billion estate for a cut, claiming that Marshall had expressed his intention to set up a trust for her and alleging sabotage by Marshall’s son Pierce, who received the lion’s share of the money.

While the case was being fought, Smith was slapped with a judgment in a sexual harassment lawsuit by a former housekeeper. The judgment was based on perceived earnings from the estate, so Smith owed $850,000 in the case. She was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1996, while continuing to fight for her $400 million portion of the Marshall estate. But a series of legal flip-flops kept any money out of her hands, until her claim was finally rejected by the Supreme Court in 2011 – four years after her death.

During the 1980s, there were few linebackers in the NFL more feared than Lawrence Taylor. The 10-time Pro Bowler won two Super Bowls on the way to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But like many pro-athletes, L.T. played hard off the field as well. “Crazy as it seems, there is a real relationship between wild, reckless abandon off the field and being that way on the field,” he said in 1987 near the height of his career. Taylor claimed he could outdrink any other linebacker in the game and tested positive twice for cocaine use. Years after he retired, he claimed he would send prostitutes to the hotel rooms of opponents to tire them out before games.

While Taylor’s lifestyle didn’t come cheap (he once estimated that at his peak, he spent thousands of dollars a day on drugs), he didn’t help his cause with business decisions. He started a company late in his career that was worth more than $10 million, then went bust. In 1997, he pled guilty to filing a false tax return in 1990. In 2009, Taylor filed for bankruptcy to avoid foreclosure on his home.

The late Gary Coleman, who was once the highest-paid actor on television for his role on “Diff’rent Strokes,” declared bankruptcy in 1999. After a series of costly medical troubles and even costlier legal battles with his adoptive parents, the then 31-year-old claimed a $72,000 debt and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. A decade prior, the actor reportedly boasted a $7 million fortune. But he said he could “spread the blame” for his bankruptcy “from me to accountants to my adoptive parents, to agents to lawyers and back to me again.”

The 4’8” star had difficulty landing steady jobs after his “Diff’rent Strokes” days, and after ongoing medical woes, passed away in 2010 at age 42. Despite the considerable financial troubles he faced during the latter portion of his life, Coleman will always be remembered for uttering that iconic, million-dollar question: “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”

 

[yrba1]

It's pretty rewarding. I live in Canada and work for one of the major banks. More stress then you would expect though. When you help people and they get what they want, they love you. When they're beyond repair, suddenly you're the devil. Can't take anything to heart. But overall it's a pretty chill 9-5 job with full benefits and decent pay.

Nice, did you have to get your CFP or CFA to qualify?

 

[JackDRams]

Nice, did you have to get your CFP or CFA to qualify?

Just my CSC. But I got it through my sschooling. They had a specific course for the purpose of acquiring the license. A CFP is just as good as well. You need one or the other.

 

[wmc540]

I figured I'd join the finance major party. I'm a finance major and accounting minor. I started out as a financial analyst for a health system and now I'm a systems analyst. Finance and accounting are the most flexible business majors so you'll find a good job. Just remember to start looking before you graduate.

 

[Angry Ram]

We have it taught to us early on that being wealthy is associated with being a greedy.

Not that I disagree with what you said, but I can't stand this ideology. Why do we have to go with that logic? It's like those that are successful get punished for being so. We've also been taught to stay in school, go to college, get a degree, get a high paying career. That's what I'm doing. Hopefully with my Master's (that I'll get next month!!!!), I can get that high paying career and live a good life. Am I considered greedy for wanting that?

As for athletes, I think those that get broke go overboard. You think Aaron Donald is gonna go broke b/c he bought his dad a car? Nah, he seems more intelligent than that.

Those that buy a mansion, get many fully loaded cars that take premium gas plus other shit like rims and a sound system, have expensive parties, no sympathy.

Those that splurge every now and then, more power to them.

 

[snackdaddy]

There are studies that people who win the lottery will eventually regress back to their previous state of middle class or lower class because subconsciously they believe that is how they should be living. There is a social element that teaches us that being wealthy is bad. We have it taught to us early on that being wealthy is associated with being a greedy.

I wouldn't mind giving it a try. :shades:

 

[FrantikRam]

I think its dumb to bash people for how they spend their money when we haven't lived in their shoes, and also haven't had their money.

I have spent a lot of money on stupid things. But even when if I detailed everything I spent money on, you wouldn't bash me like some are bashing these "idiots". Musicians and athletes typically have short lived careers; I believe it's harder to save money and plan for the future than you would think. I also believe that we call them "idiots" because we're envious of their success.

ESPN had a 30 for 30 on athletes going broke, it was a good watch, and helped a bit to understand what they go through.

 

[shaunpinney]

1 in 6. Thats a ridiculous amount. I guess its easy come, easy go for some, on the flip-side though, I wonder how many of those players agents go bankrupt??

 

[Athos]

I have spent a lot of money on stupid things. But even when if I detailed everything I spent money on, you wouldn't bash me like some are bashing these "idiots". Musicians and athletes typically have short lived careers; I believe it's harder to save money and plan for the future than you would think. I also believe that we call them "idiots" because we're envious of their success.

Bull.

These morons are blowing through cash on the stupidest shit. In the case of MC Hammer, paying considerable amounts so he can live a life of laziness. Or rather, could.

It's easy to save money. Quite simple really. Don't be a dumb fuck and shell out cash for things that cost fortunes in and of themselves on top of the base rate.

Giant mansions. High end sports cars.

I WILL bash people for gross stupidity. They flush millions down the drain. And for what?

 

[Prime Time]

There are studies that people who win the lottery will eventually regress back to their previous state of middle class or lower class because subconsciously they believe that is how they should be living.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpagliarini/2013/09/27/why-lottery-winners-crash-after-a-big-win/

Why Lottery Winners Crash After A Big Win
Robert PagliariniContributor
I focus on the financial and psychological issues of sudden wealth.

What happens when your “dreams” come true? We’re always told to be careful what we wish for, and for Powerball lottery winner “Wild” Willie Seeley and his wife Nancy, this advice couldn’t be more appropriate. The Seeleys are calling their $3.8 million win a “curse.” Their complaints? They have been bombarded by the media for interviews, and family members – many they’ve never heard of — have hit them up for loans and financial favors. “There are days I wish we were back to just getting paid every two weeks,” Willie Seeley confessed in an NBC News interview.

There is nothing unusual about their complaints. This is what commonly happens with lottery winners, and often, with other recipients of sudden wealth from lawsuits, sports contracts or even inheritances. But don’t count out the Seeleys just yet. There is hope they won’t face the same fate as $315 million Powerball winner Andrew “Jack” Whittaker who said “I wish I’d torn that ticket up,” after being robbed, losing his granddaughter to a drug overdose, being sued, and finding respite from the pressure by drinking, attending strip clubs and gambling.

As a sudden wealth financial advisor for over 15 years, I’ve had the chance to work with many clients who have received a windfall, and I’ve noticed there are predictable patterns – patterns of thinking and behaving that can explain how a multimillion dollar lottery winner can call her money a curse just a month after winning.

Immediately before or right after a sudden wealth event such as winning the lottery, many clients experience an almost out-of-body feeling. I refer to this as the honeymoon stage of sudden wealth. They are exuberant. It’s an exciting time and they feel like they are on top of the world. Anything and everything is possible. They celebrate with family and friends. They may buy new cars and larger houses, jet skis and motorcycles.

It’s Christmas morning every day, but the thing that makes Christmas so special is that it comes just once a year. The honeymoon phase is an artificial reality that is not sustainable. Their emotions are high, and they are enjoying the charge of the novelty of their new life. But this “high” cannot last forever – most often as little as a few days to over six months — and then reality hits them.

Did Willie Seeley experience the honeymoon stage? I think he did and I think it lasted about a month. Seeley and 15 of his co-workers recently won last month’s $450 million Powerball jackpot and he was all smiles as he celebrated his win by holding a large check over his head at a press conference in August. At the time, he gushed that he was “happy, happy, happy.” After the win, he and his wife quit their jobs, bought new cars, fixed their house, and helped Willie’s father and children — a frenzy of activity in a short period of time.

But it appears the honeymoon stage is over. Just this week, Willie said “The drama is nonstop,” and his wife remarked that the money is “a curse.”

After years of working with clients in the aftermath of a windfall, their reaction is not surprising. Think of a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other – from joy, excitement, and happiness to emptiness, resentment, and sometimes even despair. But just like the high, this post-honeymoon stage can be temporary. It’s a critical junction where the Seeleys and other sudden wealth recipients can either let the money control their lives, or they can begin to control their own lives and use the money as a tool rather than be used by the money.

It’s a delicate process, but one that has dramatic repercussions for their lives and the lives of their children and family. The solution is to not let the win define who they are or to change what they enjoyed about their lives pre-Powerball win. It involves exploring what they want their new lives to look like and creating a strategy that uses the money to help them achieve this. The honeymoon stage can leave a big void. It’s important to fill that hole with activities and purpose.

One of the best ways to feel in control of the money rather than be controlled by the money is to get very clear on how much you have, where it is, how much income it will produce, and to develop a strategy for responding to loan requests from friends and family. It sounds simple, but just taking these steps can give the client a sense of control so they don’t feel they are constantly reacting.

In the NBC New interview, we see a glimpse of how this win has changed their lives when Willie says, “You have to change your whole way of life, but we didn’t want to change the way we lived. We liked the way we lived.”

If the Seeleys can get in front of the money and start to control it – and based on my experience they can – they will start to feel good about their win and begin to use the money to improve their lives rather than see it as a burden or curse.

http://www.cracked.com/article_20553_5-real-people-whose-lives-were-ruined-by-winning-lottery.html

5 Real People Whose Lives Were Ruined by Winning the Lottery
By Will Millar

Every week, millions of people across the globe shell out handfuls of their hard-earned cash to take a chance at winning enough money to make all of their problems go away. Yeah, about that ...

See, it turns out that a sudden influx of cash actually doesn't make all of your personal demons vanish as if by magic. And in many cases, it makes things much, much worse.

#5. Michael Linskey Wins Lottery, Winds Up on the Wrong Side of the Mob

In the summer of 1991, Michael Linskey purchased a Mass Millions lottery ticket from the South Boston Liquor Mart and found out a few days later that he had hit the numbers in a big way. With no other winners that week, it meant that Linskey would be in possession of approximately $14 million. Boom! Life was about to become one big vacation, baby!

Just one minor problem: The liquor store was owned by a Southie mobster by the name of Whitey Bulger. You may have heard of him. To understand how utterly screwed Linskey found himself, it's important to know that Bulger was nothing like your normal run-of-the-mill gangster. In fact, Jack Nicholson played a slightly less batshit crazy version of the man in The Departed. So when Bulger found out that somebody won $14 million from his liquor store, he decided to pay the lucky winner a visit.

It is unclear what happened at this meeting, but afterward Linskey came forward and basically said "No, no, it was just a misunderstanding. I wasn't the sole winner -- Whitey and I bought the ticket together with two other mob goons, uh, I mean, good friends of mine. That's a thing that could happen, right?"

Later on, court documents would reveal that Bulger did turn over about 700 grand up front in exchange for $7 million in annuities. It was a good deal, relatively speaking, when you consider that Linskey got to keep breathing.

As for Bulger, as of 2013 he's on trial for mobster crimes such as murder, money laundering, extortion, and other evil guy stuff. But, um, you didn't hear that from us.

We've never even heard of whatshisname, the guy we were just writing about.

#4. Man Wins $75,000, Blows Up His House

Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images

So picture this: It's the middle of February, and you're in Wichita, Kansas. No, you didn't lose a bet with a wizard or anything -- you actually live there of your own volition.

In February of 2013, a 27-year-old Wichita resident and employee at a local Sonic burger stand stopped on his way home, picked up a scratch ticket, and hit it to the tune of 75 large. The young man had just enough time to show up at the lottery office to receive his cash, plus a free Kansas Lottery T-shirt, which he abruptly changed into before going out and buying several ounces of weed and methamphetamine. Later on, while hilariously still wearing his lucky lotto winner T-shirt, he decided to reload a butane lighter while standing right next to a gas stove.

It is unclear whether or not the young man had a basic understanding of how pilot lights work, or if he was just blazed out of his mind at the time. Anyway, you get the picture. The pilot spark managed to ignite flames from the butane canister, and, well ...

The guy survived, fortunately. Firefighters and cops were called to what was left of the house, and in keeping with Murphy's Law, while the ensuing conflagration tore the unfortunate house a pretty good one, it also managed to leave enough drugs intact for the lottery-winning genius to be placed under arrest as soon as he got out of the hospital. Hey, at least he had money to cover the bill!

#3. Amanda Clayton Wins a Million Dollars, Gets Arrested for Welfare Fraud

As a contestant on the Michigan Lottery-sponsored game show Make Me Rich! Amanda Clayton hit it big and walked away with the million-dollar grand prize on September 11, 2011. Maybe that should have been taken as an ominous portent or something, but whatever. So what could possibly go wrong this time?

Well, for starters, Clayton was receiving a couple hundred dollars each month in state assistance at the time of her big win, and then after she received the giant cardboard check (on live television, no less), the state continued to put money on her card.

For, like, a year.

Clayton didn't really see the problem with this. As she put it, "I still need the money, now I've got two houses to pay for."

Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images
Because juries are so sympathetic to snarky rich people.

The state of Michigan disagreed and charged her with two felony counts of welfare fraud with a penalty of up to five years in prison for each count. Complicating matters was a second charge leveled at her by one of her neighbors after an altercation over where a bag of grass clippings should be dumped. And by altercation, we mean Clayton allegedly sent a couple of goons to her neighbor's house to sort things out with "a knife, baseball bat, and pellet gun."

Clayton responded to this rapidly expanding list of woes by dying promptly of an apparent drug overdose a year after her big win.

#2. Jose Antonio Cua-Toc Wins $750,000, Gets Kicked out of the U.S.

In early 2000, Jose Antonio Cua-Toc fled from Guatemala to the U.S., where he found gainful employment in Macon, Georgia, and began his search for the American dream. In November of 2010, he finally found it, or at least that particular American dream some folks aspire to vis-a-vis being randomly handed $750,000.

At the time of the lottery win, Cua-Toc was working as a laborer for a guy named Erick Cervantes. Having crossed the border illegally, Cua-Toc was not a U.S. citizen, and he didn't have a visa, either. His quite understandable concern was that he might face some unwanted scrutiny by cashing in the winning ticket.

So Cua-Toc went to the one guy he knew might be able to help him out -- his boss. And Cervantes basically said, "Sure, I'll cash it in for you." You know what happened next, don't you? We don't have an exact transcript of the conversation, but the gist of it likely went something like this:

Cua-Toc: "Were you able to cash in that ticket for me?"

Cervantes: "Ticket? Why, I have no idea what you are talking about, stranger." (Speeds off on a brand new gold-plated jet ski while laughing maniacally.)

John Foxx/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of all this yachting."

So Cua-Toc kinda flipped out a bit after that, and the next few years weren't too fun. He allegedly threatened Cervantes and his family and was jailed for several months on terrorism charges. He then became embroiled in a very costly lawsuit to try to recoup his money.

Cua-Toc eventually did win much of his money back in the lawsuit, since there is no law preventing non-U.S. citizens from playing the lottery, any more than a tourist from outside the U.S. would be prevented from collecting his winnings from a casino poker tournament.

However, after receiving what was left of his prize ($500,000 after taxes, minus $250,000 in attorney's fees, minus an additional $50,000 in fines, and so on), Cua-Toc was given a choice: leave the country voluntarily or be deported, in which case he would be barred from returning to the U.S. for a period of at least 10 years. Oh, and then he was thrown in jail on a drunk driving conviction.

#1. Timothy Elliott Violates His Parole by Winning a Million Dollars

Timothy Elliott's life ambition was to win one of the grand prizes in the Massachusetts state lottery. We're not saying that to be snarky -- this actually did seem to be Elliott's grand vision for his life. For example, there was the time in 2006 when he committed armed robbery at one convenience store, fled to another convenience store, and spent his take on lottery tickets (and didn't win).

We should point out here that Elliott was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder, and for the above incident he was given probation and mandatory mental health counseling in lieu of any real jail time for his caper. And, as part of his probation, he was instructed to stay out of trouble: no leaving the state, no drug use, no gambling, the standard stuff.

But then his luck took a turn for the better when he purchased another state lotto ticket the legit way in November 2007 and won a million bucks. Finally! See, persistence pays off, kids.

Oh, wait -- remember the list of stuff he was supposed to avoid while on probation? And how "gambling" was on there? Yeah, as it turns out, paying a dollar or whatever for a scratch ticket is still considered gambling, if you want to get technical about it. So when Elliott cashed in his $1 million winning ticket, a picture of him went in the papers. Somebody saw the (actually pretty awesome) photo ...

Massachusetts State Lottery
That's a mug shot we wouldn't be ashamed of.

... and realized that it was none other than that Timothy Elliott. He was arraigned less than 48 hours after his big day, facing not only a return to jail, but also the forfeiture of his million-dollar dream.

Fortunately, this story has a relatively happy ending. Elliott is still an ex-con, but the courts overturned the probation violation and ended up giving him his winnings, with the provision that he pay a modest restitution. We say "relatively" happy ending, because if you have learned nothing else from this article, it's that winning that much cash appears to be a damned curse.

 

[DthOn2Legs]

I'll make a prediction on a future bankrupt ex NFL player right now:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JjenkzLockdown/photo

 

[FrantikRam]

Bull.

These morons are blowing through cash on the stupidest crap. In the case of MC Hammer, paying considerable amounts so he can live a life of laziness. Or rather, could.

It's easy to save money. Quite simple really. Don't be a dumb freak and shell out cash for things that cost fortunes in and of themselves on top of the base rate.

Giant mansions. High end sports cars.

I WILL bash people for gross stupidity. They flush millions down the drain. And for what?

Oh my. Not even sure where to start.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/

76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, with the qualifier for the other 24% being only having savings to cover 6 months.

Which means that some of that 24%, perhaps quite a bit, only have enough savings to cover a year or less. So let's say 80% of Americans can't/don't or have trouble, saving money. So it's not "easy to save money".

I'm guessing your response would be "they don't all make millions", but that is irrelevant to saving money. While it's common sense that the more money you have, the more you'd be able to save, that's not the end all be all.

It's all relative to how much money you make - you can rent an apartment for $500/month or less in any city. So if you make $14/hour, why wouldn't someone choose to do that? One reason could be they don't want to live in that neighborhood. Use the same logic and pretend you make millions.

I can't stand it when people hold rich people to higher standards. It's ignorant. You don't have millions, so you can't judge someone who does. Saying it's "gross stupidity" is a VERY ignorant comment.

 

[DaveFan'51]

No Sympathy here! Teams, like the Rams, spend a lot of time and money educating their Rookies, before they sign them and give them their 1st check! If they don't want to take the advise of other players and coaches that have been there, Piss on them!!