A Lottery Fortune Won and Lost | Millionaire Profiles

Home

Millionaire Profiles

A Lottery Fortune Won and Lost

Eleazar Ford always lived something of a charmed life. He was the second of two children of working class parents, and the only boy. Because of his gender, his parents decided to send him to college instead of his elder sister, despite the fact that they both made good grade in high school and both wanted to go to college. Eli, as he was known to friends and family, was 6’6”, a natural athlete. He was a star basketball player at his high school and got a partial scholarship for athletics to a state university. After graduating he played two seasons for the New York Knickerbockers, where he reports that he warmed the bench most of the time. He returned home to Pittsburgh and married his high school sweetheart Ginnie. They bought a small bungalow on the north side, had three boys in quick succession, and settled down for a regular life. They enjoyed a normal, middle-class life for 20 years. Then Eli won the lottery.On a December night in 1987, Eli and Ginnie were watching the nightly news as they did every night. Absently, when the lottery numbers were called, Eli looked at the ticket he bought every week. As the numbers rolled across the screen, he and Ginnie gasped, and then screamed.“I couldn’t sleep all night. I kept getting up and checking the ticket. I just couldn’t believe it” says Eli. It was quickly confirmed that they had won $6.4 million, after taxes, in the Pennsylvania State Lottery.

Eli quit his job a month later, after being assured of the lottery payout. Ginnie, who’d worked part time as a cashier at a pharmacy quit the next day. The Fords didn’t put any of their money into trusts for their children or grandchildren, preferring to dole it out as needed. They worked with a financial advisor and Eli dabbled in day trading, but nothing much came of either. They gave generously to charities around Pittsburgh, and traveled all over the U.S., visiting family and friends and sight seeing, always flying coach.

“We were the same people we always were; working class people from Pittsburgh. Why would we fly first class and eat caviar? That wasn’t us, no matter how much money we won, it never would be,” Ginnie says.Twenty years later, the money is gone.The Fords did not live what many would call a lavish lifestyle, though they added luxuries aplenty. As Ginnie said, the high-flying life wasn’t them, but 20 years of spending their lottery winnings, without causing money to come in, diminished their assets considerably. They currently own their home outright, which has increased in value to be their biggest asset, but they can barely afford the taxes on it and are thinking of selling it.

Though they will never be out on the streets, their circumstances are much reduced from where they must have imagined them on that December night two decades ago with new cars and new houses and not needing to work ever again.

Despite all of the wonderful things the Fords were able to do to help their children along the way, and the comfort in which they lived for twenty years, they ended up not to far from where they started financially. What is of greater concern to the Fords, is the fact they have no assets to leave to their three boys or their seven grandchildren, some of whom are entering college. They are unable to help with their grand-children’s education and can’t help ease any of their children’s financial burdens.

“My granddaughter wants to go to Columbia University, but her parents can’t afford it. If it was 15 years ago, I could help out, but now I can’t,” Eli explains.

Unfortunately this is a story that plays out over and over, and not just for middle class lottery winners but for many people who come into wealth suddenly, perhaps through inheritance, lawsuit settlements, or other means of acquiring quick affluence. Perhaps if the Fords had gotten better financial advice in the beginning, someone to talk to them about long-term goals, and multi-generational wealth, they, and their children and grandchildren would be able in a much different position--If they had focused on using their winnings to build long-term wealth and expand revenue streams, rather than on financing a lifestyle which did not include business ownership or work.

Eli and Ginnie still play the lottery every week, but they don’t really expect lightening to strike twice.