Lottery winnings, and the funny things people do with them

21 January 2022

Walk up to some random people in the street and ask them what they would buy if they won the lottery and you can probably guess the most popular choices. Big houses, fast cars, luxury fashion and extravagant holidays. We’ve found some people though who had more creative ideas.

1. New knees

Tony and Greta Dodd were your average senior citizens, but when they found themselves holding onto a £3.4 million win in the UK Lotto, they splashed the cash on something we probably rarely think about: new knees. That’s not some strange typo, the couple spent a lot of their winnings on new knees for Greta. Why? Greta had suffered from joint pain in her knees for a long time and the couple wanted it to be possible to go dancing again. Most of us would race to the shops, but for Mr Dodds, dancing with his wife is worth more than a flashy sports car.

2. The Team

Are you as big a footie fanatic as Colin Weir? Mr Weir was a lucky winner who landed a whopping £161 million Euromillions jackpot and then did what many only dream of. He bought his local football team, the Partick Thistle Football Club in Scotland after a £2.5 million investment. For the rest of us football fans, we’ll have to content ourselves with playing Football Manager.

3. A waterpark

Some people like to be called water babies, whether it's their nearest beach or their backyard pool, some people love to be in the water. In 2013, a group of co-workers from New York bought a winning Mega Millions ticket that landed them $319 million to share amongst themselves. One of the winners, a Mr John Kutey, decided to take $250,000 out of his share and have it used to refurbish a local waterpark for the community and at no cost to the taxpayer. What a nice guy!

4. A fireworks factory

We’ve heard of bursting with laughter, but never exploding with happiness. Debbie Mather from the UK is what you would call a smart lottery winner. If you ask what she spent her winnings on, she could read out a list of exactly where it’s been. Obviously, we found normal things on the list like property, a 12 months holiday (wow right!) and helping out her family. What stands out in the list was a £500,000 investment to start a fireworks company back in 2011, and since it’s still operating, we can only assume business is booming.

5. Real estate…on the moon

We didn't even know you could buy land on the moon, but it seems Mr Dave Copeland managed to find a way to do just that. Mr Copeland won just under $1 million in his national lottery and decided that some property on the moon would be exactly what he needed. We’re assuming he’s waiting for a lunar construction company to give him a quote so that he can build something on his lunar land as in the meantime he also bought land on Mars and Venus. We think Mr Copeland might have ambitions to start an inter planetary empire.

Do you think your ideas are crazier? Well Jackpot.com has an awesome list of lotteries for you to try your luck on right here. Maybe the next time that we write an awesome list like this, you could be on it.