26
Nov
Hundreds of thousands of people play the lottery every single day. These people are spending their money on the hope that they will win enough money to never have to worry about financial troubles again. Most people just spend a little bit of cash now and then on this silly dream. However there are some people who develop a serious addiction to playing the lottery. This form of gambling addiction is unique but unfortunately it isn’t too rare. It’s easy to fall into this trap, especially when you are hurting for cash. It can seem like such a smart investment to spend just a little bit of money to take the chance to win a lot more of it. However it’s a mistake. Frugal people don’t buy lottery tickets because they know that it’s more profitable to make smart buying choices than to go gamble away their money on the chance at a better life. If you ever feel tempted to sacrifice your usually-frugal ways in the hopes of winning the lottery, think again.
Let these ten examples of severe lottery addiction be a warning to you!
1.Winner Loses All. Many people assume that if they won the lottery once then they wouldn’t feel the need to play the game anymore. However lottery addiction isn’t nearly such a logical thing. Consider the case of Jack, a man who won $1 million in the lottery and it only caused his life to get more chaotic. The high of winning caused him to develop a serious addiction to instant lottery tickets. He not only used up the entire first payment of his winnings but also borrowed tens of thousands of dollars from friends to keep up the addiction. He ended up bankrupt and hospitalized from lottery addiction even though he was technically a winner.
2.Addicted Man’s Wife and Daughter Commit Suicide. We usually see talk about lottery addiction mostly in North America and Europe, particularly in the U.S. and UK. However it’s a problem that can wreak havoc in lives around the world. Case in point; in 2007 a woman and her daughter hung themselves in India due at least in part to the problems that the husband/father had with lottery addiction. The man was addicted to single-digit lottery tickets to the point where he owed people a lot of money. The man went on the run and the women were being harassed for the money. They saw suicide as their only way out. What a tragic case of the effects of lottery addiction on the whole family!
3.Canadian Man Kills Himself Over Lottery Addiction. Unfortunately suicide is not all that uncommon among people with gambling addictions including lottery addiction. They dig themselves into a financial hole and just can’t see any way out of it. That was the case with a man in Quebec who spent his life savings on lottery tickets in the span of just a few weeks. Like the man in our first example, he had actually won a small sum in the years before and was trying to chase down that win again. He didn’t succeed and ended up committing suicide. The suicide was blamed directly on his gambling addiction by the coroner who issued the report on his death.
4.Bus Driver Loses Job Over Text Lottery Addiction. Technology seems to have exacerbated lottery addiction for some people. For example, in Poland it is possible to enter some lotteries via text. A bus driver there did exactly that, using his company’s mobile phone to repeatedly enter the lottery competition. In his hopes of winning 100,000 zloty (about £17,600) he sent over 1200 lottery entries per day by text. The total cost due to text messaging fees was 94,000 zloty (£16,500). His company was none too pleased and the bus driver ended up losing his job.
5.Robbing Banks to Play Lottery. Imagine taking the huge risk of being a bank robber in China where the penalty for such a crime is death. Now imagine that you succeed in stealing over $6.5 million from a bank without getting caught. Would you use the money to play the lottery in the hopes of winning even more money? It sounds crazy but that’s exactly what a pair of bank robbers did in China recently. They were caught and sentenced to death.
6.$6000 / Day Lottery Addiction. There are quite a few stories of lottery addicts stealing money. In this case, a woman stole over $2 million from her employer to feed her addiction to the lottery. At one point her addictive behavior was so bad that she was spending up to $6000 / day playing the lottery!
7.Political Consultant Steals Funds for Video Lottery Addiction. There are a few different types of lottery that can be played depending on where you live. A lot of people who have a lottery addiction get addicted to instant scratch tickets because of the immediate gratification of them. However another popular form of lottery addiction comes from people who enjoy playing the video lottery. That was the problem for a U.S. political consultant who stole $100,000 from the government campaign for which he was working. He lost his job, compromised his family (which includes three adopted kids) and got himself into a lot of legal trouble.
8.Stealing from Grandma. Another man who became addicted to video lottery did a number of appalling things. The worst of those things is that he would steal money from his elderly grandmother in order to feed his addiction. The entire family ended up suffering because of this man’s problem with the lottery.
9.Maxing Out Credit Cards to Play Lottery. One of the men who was addicted to scratch lottery tickets found himself in deep financial trouble after he maxed out all of his credit cards playing the game. He would stop at gas stations and convenience stores multiple times on the way to and from his job just so that he could buy lottery tickets. He almost used his home’s mortgage to keep up his addiction but his family caught on to the problem in the nick of time and sent him to recovery. He had to work two jobs to try to pay off his debt.
10.A Day Late and a Dollar Short. Here’s a little bit of sad irony for you. A 63-year-old man admitted to a felony after the embezzled $87,750 from his employer in order to feed his lottery addiction. While he was in the middle of his trial, he found out that one of his lottery tickets was actually a winner! However, the money that he won had to go to pay off his employer and his legal fees and he was still left holding the bag for the crime of embezzlement.
Note that lottery addiction is considered to be a form of gambling addiction. There are support groups, hotlines and counselors who can help with this type of problem.
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