You Win Some, You Lose Some: Lottery Winners Who Lost Everything

Tonda Lynn Dickerson Loses $9 Million Dollars

Edward Seward was a Waffle House regular. He was so close to the employees at his Grand Bay, Alabama Waffle House that he would share his lottery tickets with them. But when employee Tonda Lynn Dickerson won $10 million from one of the tickets he bought her, she took a “finders keepers” approach.

Seward and the Waffle House crew took Dickerson to court claiming she has fraudulently misrepresented herself by agreeing to accept the ticket on the condition that she would share her earnings if she won. Since there was no contract, Dickerson won in court but eventually faced the IRS, who ruled that she owed $9 million of her winnings. We’re guessing Dickerson hasn’t been in a Waffle House since.