Meet the lotto lout who blew $15 million

 

Mickey Carroll struck gold with a £9.7 million ($15 million) lottery jackpot win when he was just 19 years old, but is new-found riches quickly turned his life into a nightmare.

The British garbage collector already had a criminal record and was wearing a police-monitored electronic ankle tag at the time he collected his winnings in November 2002.

He quickly became known as the ‘lotto out’ and self-proclaimed ‘King of Chavs’.

Also read: Eight things lottery winners won’t tell you

After giving £4 million to friends and family, and buying a mansion in Swaffham, Norfolk, Carroll reportedly spent the remainder of his winnings on excessive spending and wild parties filled with cocaine, gambling and hookers.

Carroll claimed in his autobiography he was also blackmailed out of £130,000 by criminals which threatened his family.

His wild lifestyle found him in trouble with the police on numerous occasions, resulting in stints of community service and also time in jail for offenses ranging from drunkenly catapulting steel balls from his new Mercedes van to failing to appear in court.

But Carroll’s most excessive spending involved an investment bond of around £3.9 million which he was advised to set this up as an untouchable fund that would generate a substantial monthly income even if he blew the rest of his fortune.

Also read: 18 things more likely to happen than winning the lottery

When, inevitably, his readily-available cash did run out, Carroll began to withdraw from the bond itself — each time paying colossal penalties of tens of thousands of pounds.

By May 2010, after having spent the entirety of his winnings and being declared bankrupt, Carroll applied for his old job as a garbage collector.

While he now earns just £400 a week working at a slaughterhouse and rents a modest flat the Lotto Lout still says he has “absolutely no regrets” about the way he spent his winnings.