Michael Carroll: Where Is the Lottery Millionaire Now?
What happens to lottery winners down the line? Five years after winning? Or maybe even 10 to 15? We’ve told numerous stories of people blowing away their fortune or becoming real charity powerhouses. Today, we will revisit an all acquaintance of ours who lost everything instead of changing his life for the better.
Do you remember Michael Carroll? He became infamous for one of the quickest lottery jackpot losses in history. We’ve decided to take a look at the story again and find out where Michael Carroll is now.
The Incredible Story of a Teen Garbage Collector
Back in 2002, Michael Carroll was 19 and he worked as a garbage man.
He was obviously facing financial difficulties exacerbated by the fact that his girlfriend at the time was carrying Michael’s child.
Fate quickly turned around for the young couple when Michael won the national lottery and claimed the massive jackpot of 9.73 million pounds. Many believed this was the chance that Michael and his beloved needed to start anew and make a good life for themselves.
Obviously, the story doesn’t end this way.
It took Michael Carroll only 10 years to blow through the entire fortune and lose every single pound.
He did what many others have fallen for. Neighbors knew when Michael was throwing a party. There were naked girls walking around and carrying entire trays of cocaine. Michael wasted massive amounts on luxury cars, prostitutes, Roman-style orgies and other wasteful things.
In an interview, Michael said that one of his parties would cost as much as 50,000 pounds to throw. Eventually, he was using approximately 2,000 pounds per day to fuel his drug addiction.
Needless to say, Michael’s girlfriend couldn’t take this rapid decline. Disgusted by the lifestyle and the cheating, she left soon after Michael won. She took her ex to court and was granted 1.4 million pounds in a settlement.
The fact that she was gone made Michael spend in even more insane ways. Michael Carroll – lottery winner who could have done something with himself – dug even deeper into the shallow world of cheap thrills. He bought dirt bikes, he experimented with all kinds of drugs and he bailed friends out of jail after nights of getting high together.
Michael also became quite aggressive and police met him on multiple occasions. In the years after winning, Michael had over 30 court appearances for aggressive behavior and threatening an array of individuals.
In 2005, Michael Carroll was given an Anti-Social Behaviour Order. The court order resulted from causing damages worth thousands of pounds during a drunken spree involving a catapult!
It doesn’t really get any crazier than that.
This was also the year during which Michael received a note from his accountant that warned him about being down to the last lottery million.
Michael Carroll Now: Working 24/7 to Support Himself
It’s 2019 and Michael Carroll’s rapid decline has come to an end. There’s no more lottery money to waste and Michael is back to square one.
In an interview with The Mirror that was published in mid-November, Michael said that he’s working seven days a week as a coal delivery man to support himself.
He makes 10 pounds an hour and he has to work long shifts in order to earn enough.
Do you know what the most interesting part of the story is? Michael Carroll now hasn’t really learned his lesson.
When asked whether he would have done things differently, knowing that every pound would be lost, Michael responded in a truly shocking way. He said that the years after winning the lottery were the best of his life and he wouldn’t change them for anything!
Michael did say that his current lifestyle is way better and he has managed to regain his freedom. At the height of his lottery winning, Michael became a full-blown alcoholic who would consume two bottles of vodka per day. He’d consume any other alcohol that he managed to get his hands on and wake up in strange places.
We really have no idea how Michael doesn’t regret any of the self-destructive choices he made. Still, he was only 19 at the time of winning and he hasn’t reached a really mature age yet. Chances are that in 10 to 15 more years, Michael Carroll would have a completely different outlook on his post-winning behavior and what he could have done to really embrace a life of wealth and abundance.
Working in a remote part of Scotland now, Michael Carroll remembers the moment when the lottery money ended.
It was 2013 and he was completely broke. He lost his properties, attempting to fund his drug purchases. He also had a bad reputation that made it impossible to find a new job.
Eventually, he followed his ex to Scotland and he lived the homeless lifestyle for three months. As time went by, he found a job in a biscuit factory and later on – in a slaughterhouse. In a little while, he was hired to do the coal delivery and he’s still doing the job every single day.
“I’m happy. I don’t have to look over my shoulder anymore, no one’s going to hit me over the back of the head and rob me,”
Michael said in his Mirror interview.
He also said that he understands the fact that he’s lucky to be alive after everything he’d gone through.
As to whether Michael still plays the lottery, the answer is yes.
Michael Carroll said that he still buys tickets but he understands money is the root of all evil. If he were to win again, Michael believes that he’d buy a house and travel for a while.
In Michael’s view, his downfall has come because of others asking him for money and trying to rob him. His advice to people playing the lottery right now is trust nobody and watch your back. He may be on to something!
