I won £7.5k on the lotto but I’m not sharing it with my husband, I donated it instead
Despite winning the jackpot, countless British lotto winners have suffered astonishing tragedies and lost their fortunes.
Callie Rogers
Callie became Britain’s youngest lottery winner when she won £1.9 million in 2003.
The 16-year-old from Cumbria gave up her £3.60-an-hour cashier job and started spending money, buying a £180,000 bungalow and a £76,000 house for her mother.
But she ended up spending thousands of dollars on wild parties, three boob jobs and drugs, plus around £300,000 on designer clothes.
Eighteen years after her victory, Callie was revealed to be claiming Universal Credit after losing her fortune.
Michael Carrol
The self-styled ‘King of Chavs’ was 19 when he won £9,736,131 from the National Lottery in November 2002.
The part-time binman, who wore an electronic tag when he bought his winning ticket, immediately bought a £340,000 six-bedroom house in Norfolk.
He spent a further £400,000 on luxury home upgrades and spent £49,000 on a BMW to park in his driveway. Notably, he invested £1 million in Rangers FC shares.
Michael’s wife, Sandra, left him due to his incessant party boy lifestyle and took £1.4 million from the divorce settlement. He had declared bankruptcy in 2010.
Roger Griffiths
Griffiths and his wife Lara earned £1.8 million from the National Lottery in 2005.
The couple quit their day jobs, enjoyed expensive holidays and luxury motorbikes and also spent £800,000 on a converted barn in Wetherby, West Yorks.
After wannabe rock star Roger spent £25,000 making a music record, the couple invested in safer assets, but the global financial crisis struck and left them worthless.
In 2010, their uninsured home tragically went up in flames – and three years later, all their funds dried up.
Lee Ryan
Ex-con Ryan won the £6.5 million jackpot just 17 weeks after the lottery launched in 1994.
It later emerged that he was accused of handling stolen cars and served 18 months in prison after his huge payout.
Once released, he enjoyed his wealth for ten years, even buying a helicopter and a £2 million mansion, but ultimately ended up penniless.
Lee suffered his final blow when he made an ill-fated trip to Kyrgyzstan and invested the last of his profits in real estate, which failed due to an economic crisis.
Gillian and Adrian Bayford
The loved-up couple’s lives changed overnight in 2012 when they raked in a whopping £148million.
But just 15 months after the victory, their eight-year marriage ended, with both parties partly blaming stress for their stunning victory.
Adrian moved in with ex-horse groomer Samantha Burbidge, who eventually ran off with his money, 30 horses, a horse trailer and a car that he gave her as a gift.
Gillian was convicted of attacking her ex-lover Gavin Innes. She then moved on and started dating fraudster Brian Deans, who ended up in jail and last made headlines in 2021 for claiming almost £40,000 in furlough.
Margaret Loughrey
Margaret earned £27 million in 2013, becoming Northern Ireland’s biggest winner at the time.
However, the 48-year-old later admitted that the enormous fortune did not bring her happiness.
She told local media: “Money has only brought me sadness. It has ruined my life.”
Tragically, Margaret, now in her 50s, was found dead in her home in September last year.
Martyn and Kay Tott
The Totts got the shock of their lives when they realized they had won £3 million in 2001 – six months after they bought the ticket.
By the time they saw a call for the winner to come forward, they couldn’t find the ticket.
Computer records in their local Londis showed that Kay had actually bought the ticket.
But a little-known rule that required reporting lost tickets within 30 days meant they would never receive the money, ultimately putting too much strain on their marriage and causing it to break down.
