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The world's largest lottery is launching in the UK this week - offering a fortunate British player the chance to become more than £300million ($400m) wealthier. Powerball, an American lottery game, awards massive jackpots that are distributed over a 30-year period.
Today (July 23) marks the inaugural UK draw with an estimated top prize exceeding £300m - the biggest jackpot ever made available in Britain. Allwyn, which operates the National Lottery, has opened the game to UK participants, who will be entering alongside American players.
One former Powerball winner has firsthand experience of landing an astronomical sum - but the windfall became the most destructive event of his life.
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Andrew 'Jack' Whittaker came to regret the ticket that preceded devastating family tragedies, marital breakdown, repeated thefts and a troubling gambling problem.
Here, we examine the disturbing downward spiral Whittaker endured following his win.
Jack Whittaker
On Christmas Eve 2002, Whittaker bought a ticket at a grocery store in his hometown of Hurricane, West Virginia, US, after pulling in to fill up his vehicle.
Though he rarely played, he hit the jackpot with what became the largest single winning ticket in US lottery history - $315m.
Yet this wasn't a rags-to-riches tale, as Whittaker, an American entrepreneur who operated a thriving construction business, was already worth a substantial $17m. Despite his prior experience managing substantial wealth, the Powerball windfall proved too much to handle, and his life quickly began to unravel.
Rather than spreading his winnings across multiple payments over time, he opted for a lump sum payout, walking away with $113m after taxes.
He was far from tight-fisted with his newfound fortune, pouring $15m into the construction of two churches while also establishing the Jack Whittaker Foundation, which provided financial assistance to individuals for expenses such as car payments and other bills.
Nevertheless, he proved to be a divisive winner. Divorce accountant Bob Rufus recalled witnessing a heated confrontation between Whittaker and his wife's divorce attorney, recounting: "Jack was ready to start throwing punches. He was very volatile."
The Powerball winner had initially vowed the prize money wouldn't change who he was, telling Fox News he was "doing God's work with all this money" and adding: "I am helping a lot of people and I plan to help a lot more."
Yet following his windfall, he soon turned up to his local strip club, Pink Pony, placing $50,000 in cash behind the bar.
The bar manager at the time told the Washington Post: "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 over a million dollars in cash sitting inside his Lincoln parked outside the venue.
Reports indicate that two individuals subsequently drugged him before breaking into the vehicle to steal the money. Both faced charges but avoided jail time, and the cash was later discovered near a trash can.
Astonishingly, Whittaker failed to heed the warning, and $200,000 was stolen from the same vehicle outside the same strip club just five months later.
Whittaker became a notorious local figure following his lottery windfall, splashing out on a Lamborghini and becoming renowned for hurling cash from his car window.
After countless large sums were stolen from him, he was questioned about why he continued carrying such vast amounts of money, to which he responded: "Because I can."
Tragically, just two years after striking it rich, Whittaker lost his granddaughter, Brandi Bragg, who was only 17-years-old.
Brandi was discovered in a plastic trapline behind an abandoned van. Prior to her death, Whittaker had reportedly been giving his granddaughter $2,000 per week, in addition to purchasing four cars for her.
Divorce accountant Bob Rufus commented: "He gave a crazy stipend to his 17-year-old granddaughter and that attracted some bad characters: nothing good came of it."
Though nothing could overshadow the grief of losing a loved one, Whittaker's downward spiral continued, culminating in a lawsuit from Caesars Atlantic City casino after he bounced a check for $1.5m to cover gambling debts. In 2008, after 42 years of marriage, Jewell Whittaker filed for divorce.
The proceedings were bitter and protracted, and in 2011, the Supreme Court determined that his ex-wife was entitled to a share of her former husband's business assets.
Whittaker also suffered the devastating loss of his 42-year-old daughter, Ginger Whittaker Bragg — Brandi's mother — in 2009.
Speaking to ABC News, he expressed deep remorse over his Powerball windfall, saying: "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, whose home was destroyed by fire in 2016, further lamented: "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."
According to The Washington Post, he once loudly offered a female bartender cash for sex, while also offering another woman behind the bar $10,000 to pose in her underwear.
He was also once accused of sexual assault in a case that was settled before he claimed in 2007 that he was too broke to pay out.
Whittaker once told the Associated Press: "I'm only going to be remembered as the lunatic who won the lottery."
He passed away from natural causes at the age of 72 in June of 2020.
