I can just see me on a tropical island
Riding the surf and drinking coconut wine
Chasing the sun through an innocent land
Leaving the straight life behind

-Bobby Goldsboro 

The E! television network has been running a show called Curse of the Lottery.  It features lottery winner turned lottery loser, Jack Whitaker. 

Jack is the guy in West Virginia who won the biggest Powerball jackpot in history. Jack has also been the poster child of how to screw up your life.  Death, destruction, and chaos follow wherever Jack goes. 

His soon-to-be ex-wife wishes he had torn up the winning ticket. In Jack’s case, it would have been a good idea.

I don’t play the lottery and encourage everyone to do the same, but I know many people always do it. That reality is reinforced every time I stop in a convenience store. I would like stores with lottery lines and non-lottery lines. I wonder if I would be the only person in the non-lottery category. 

I feel sorry for the people who hang around stores blowing their money on lottery tickets.   Especially those who play scratch-off games.  There is an allure to scratch-off games that totally escapes me.

I can see spending a buck on the chance to win $300 million. I don’t understand spending that same buck on a scratch-off game. I have watched a lot of people win a few dollars  with scratch-offs and then turn around and buy more until they blow it all. 

Scratch-offs are not a form of gambling; they are a form of boredom killing. 

Many lottery players are like the man in the Bobby Goldsboro song. They want to escape from where they are. It is the same reason that people do drugs, drink, and have other issues. They are looking for a way out of their current lives. 

They hope the lottery will solve their problems. They think things will be better on a tropical island. 

If tropical islands were perfect, everyone would live there.  Professional beachcombing may not be all it is made out to be.  

Unlike what the title of the E! television show implies, winning the lottery is not like the curse of King Tut’s tomb.  It is just that people do not handle the change in lifestyle well. 

Many lottery players are people with issues.  They want to be rid of problems, and hope that the lottery is the answer.  Although it doesn’t happen often, occasionally one of those unhappy people win. 

Once they win, they expect their problems to be gone. They won’t be.  Money will cause those problems to multiply. 

Most people have boundaries, and money is one of the biggest. People don’t take 50 of their closest “friends” to Las Vegas since they can’t afford to. 

Lottery winners can suddenly afford to do stupid things--and they do so until the money runs out. The friends go at about the same time. 

Jack is a classic example of where money met bad habits. Blowing thousands in strip clubs, indulging his granddaughter, and his generally obnoxious behavior could not have happened without unlimited money 

It was not a curse. It was a guy with no control. The money did not create the Jack’s bad habits; it let him practice them without boundaries. 

If Jack had spent some money on some good psychological help, he might have kept more money and had a better quality of life. It certainly couldn’t have hurt.  His “strip club and casino therapy” was expensive and did not pay off.  

I have heard that 90% of people who win the lottery run through the money in five years. A lot of people are doing things wrong. 

They don’t look at the winnings as a chance to provide security, give back to the world, or take care of their family. 

They look at the money as a way to leave the straight life behind. 

As long as they see money as a way to fix their other problems, they are never going to have it long. 

That is not a curse. It is just the way the world works.

Don McNay is the author of The Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher, and you can meet him at a book signing and author presentation on Monday October 9, 7 pm at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Ky.   You can write to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or read other things he has written at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it