Press Kit

Recently, I read yet another article claiming that "70% of lottery winners go bankrupt within five years." The story was about a man who had won $16 million and lost everything within a decade. I'd seen this 70% statistic cited by everyone from financial advisors to news anchors, and found myself wondering: where did it actually come from?

But when I looked into it, I couldn't find an origin. The National Endowment for Financial Education, commonly credited as the source, publicly disavowed it in 2018. So what started as a quick fact-check turned into a five-week investigation, tracking hundreds of Powerball winners across three decades.

Using news archives, court records, and public filings, I found that winners who did spiral into addiction or financial ruin almost always had documented struggles before they won. The money didn't create their problems - it just accelerated them. But there was something else I kept finding: identity fraud. Winners' identities stolen and weaponized in scams costing victims hundreds of millions annually.

This research is about setting the story straight and documenting what actually happens to lottery winners, not the myths we repeat.