One of the first things that lottery winners learn is that they suddenly discover all sorts of friends and family members that they never knew they had.
I’m not one of those people. In the event that I were to win a lottery, I know exactly who my close friends and family members are (they number fewer than twenty), and if there were any money that was available to be shared, they’d get 80% of it (after my off-the-top 20%, depending on the size of the pot — the smaller the pot, the larger my percentage). But even that’s not the end of it. Because — and this is made quite clear in all the rules and literature about this kind of thing — any lottery winnings are the sole possession of the individual whose name is on the winning ticket. Nobody else is “owed” anything.
And here’s the little tale of avarice and entitlement that made me think about this in the first place:
Alex Robertson was one of a dozen bus drivers from Corby, Northants., to scoop a share of £38million on the EuroMillions. Mr Robertson’s share, which he won a decade ago, was worth £3.1million – but it sparked a feud between him and his sons, who claimed he refused to share any of the cash with them.
…which was his right. £3.1million was back then the equivalent of about $4.7 million — hardly what we would call “screw you” money — so apart from the legal issue, he was perfectly within his rights not to share the money with anyone else. Just to make the point even clearer: his sons were in their early 30s when he won the lottery, and so not his dependent children, by any stretch.
And here’s where the fun begins. His bratty kids started to go after him:
Alex Jnr admitted: “We ended up taking hammers to his two new 4x4s. We walked up his driveway at 11 o’clock at night and put two claw hammers through the windows of the car. We then reported ourselves to the police.”
William was later charged with harassing his Lotto-winning dad by sending him threatening text messages.
And the whining:
Alex Jr. told The Sun at the time: “This lottery win was the worst thing that ever happened to us — it ripped our families apart.”
No, you self-entitled, unspeakable little shit: you ripped the families apart by somehow thinking that your hardworking bus driver of a dad had to share his good fortune with you. Did you ever buy your own lottery tickets? (Doubt it, and even so, it’s irrelevant.)
Anyway, all’s well that ends well. Robinson Sr. lives in Spain, far away from his toxic offspring, and I just hope that he’s willed the remainder of his estate to a worthwhile charity, and not to the Fuckhead Twins.
