Everyone who has ever bought a lottery ticket has a version of the daydream. The family compound. The early retirement. The car. And lurking just behind it: the warning. The lottery curse. The winner who goes broke within five years, whose life falls apart under the weight of sudden wealth, who ends up worse off than before.
One widely quoted statistic instructs that one-third of lottery winners — or 70%, depending on the source — lose it all within a few years. USA TODAY decided to check. Reporters tracked 31 publicly identified Powerball winners who claimed jackpots greater than $50 million between late 2012 and 2016. All have now lived more than 10 years as lottery millionaires. What they found is not what the curse story predicts.
The Statistic Nobody Can Trace
The "one-third" or "70%" figure about lottery winners going broke is cited constantly — in news articles, financial advice columns, casual conversations about why you shouldn't want to win. The USA TODAY team tried to locate the original source. They couldn't.
No reputable study underlies those statistics. The figure appears to circulate as established fact, referenced and re-referenced until it seems verified by volume. It isn't. The researchers concluded that the lottery curse, as popularly understood, is largely a myth built on anecdote and a small number of high-profile cases given disproportionate coverage.
What Actually Happens in the First Weeks
The real curse, as winners describe it, is something more specific and more temporary.
When a Powerball jackpot winner's name becomes public, their phone fills with calls. Their email fills with messages from strangers, distant relatives, and people claiming religious instruction to share in the winnings. Their doorbell rings at odd hours. Friends they haven't spoken to in years resurface. Financial advisors appear from nowhere with urgent proposals.
Susan Brands, who won a $96.5 million jackpot in 2014, described the immediate aftermath: "We had all kinds of letters from people who said God told them we were going to give them money."
"When you have money, it doesn't solve all of your problems," said Thomas Murphy, a certified financial planner who has worked with lottery winners. "It solves some of your problems. And it introduces a whole host of new problems with which you have absolutely no background or experience."
For most winners, this period eventually ends. The attention fades, the bad actors move on, and the winner is left with their money and a much clearer picture of who was in their life for the right reasons.
What a Decade of Tracking Found
Of the 31 Powerball winners USA TODAY tracked, at least nine had obviously thrived: living well, fulfilling bucket lists, and giving back to their communities. Seven of those nine started charitable foundations.
Only two had seemingly succumbed to something resembling the lottery curse — subsequent setbacks or misfortunes significant enough to generate national news coverage. Twenty-nine out of 31 winners appeared, by all available evidence, to be doing fine.
The Brands, who received the $96.5 million jackpot in 2014, started a foundation. Their most extravagant purchase in the years since: a private jet to see an Eagles concert in Las Vegas. She still uses coupons at the grocery store.
Roy Cockrum, a former Episcopal monk and struggling actor, won $260 million in 2014 and took roughly $60 million of his after-tax prize to open a foundation funding ambitious theater projects.
Why the Curse Story Persists
The cases that fit the narrative are vivid and specific: the winner who was murdered, the one who went bankrupt, the one whose family fell apart. These stories spread because they're dramatic. The far more common outcome — someone quietly living well, having given generously to causes they care about, who has mostly disappeared from public view — doesn't generate headlines.
"I've been there with people who have gotten the check, and seen the look on their faces, the realization of how their lives have now changed, and their grandchildren's lives have now changed," said Stephen Durrell, executive director of the Kansas Lottery. "And it's a tremendous feeling."
The lottery curse, as it turns out, is a story about the first few weeks. For most winners, that storm passes — and what comes after is mostly just a better version of the life they already had.
