In 1995, Mark Gardiner achieved what many dream of: he hit the lottery jackpot. Together with a business partner, the Englishman won more than 22.5 million British pounds – that’s the equivalent of around 25.5 million euros. Gardiner could have had a carefree life with his share of the profits, one would think. But the supposed stroke of luck plunged him into misfortune.
Gardiner now even wishes his lottery win had never happened: “There are days when I curse my win and wish I had never had anything to do with it,” he admitted to the “Mirror” ten years after the jackpot. Both financially and personally things went downhill for him. So much so that Gardiner even publicly warns: “Stay away from the lottery. So much money can make you totally unhappy.”
It all started so well. Gardiner was in his early 30s, a regular glazier from the English town of Hastings, when he and his friend won the lottery. The two played the same numbers every week – and suddenly had millions in the account. “For a long time we could only stare at each other and didn’t know what to say,” Gardiner recalled the first hours after learning about the sum. But he quickly got to know the downside of this win. His mother, who cut ties with him just before the jackpot, sold her story to the media. Friends revealed the identity of the alleged lucky guy to the press, and journalists besieged his house.
Gardiner wanted to make a nice living with the money. “I spent a lot and had fun, I bought property and cars and went on vacation,” said Gardiner on the TV show “Good Morning Britain” in 2016. But with some investments that should also pay off in the long term, he sat down properly into the nettles. Among other things, the Englishman pumped a lot of money into two football clubs and other business projects. However, that did not pay off. Above all, the investments in football were “total waste of money”, he had to admit.
Gardiner also experienced a series of disappointments in his private life. After a difficult childhood, he had been married three times before winning. His fourth marriage also failed, and his wife couldn’t cope with the sudden wealth. Gardiner no longer has any contact with his business partner, who at the time cleared away the other half of the profit. And he’s lost plenty of other friends too – although he even bought four buddies houses for half a million pounds. Many would have tried to take advantage of him and get rich from him – sometimes even with lawsuits.
“Having so much money made me suspicious of people’s intentions,” Gardiner told the Daily Mail. “It’s awful, but when someone is nice, I wonder what they’re up to.” The disappointment runs deep with the supposed lucky guy, he only trusts a very small circle of people for a long time: “I thought that if you ever win the lottery, all the rooms will be full of roses, the harps are playing in the background, it is like in a fairy tale. But what the lottery doesn’t tell you is that you’re going to get a whole bunch of new problems because everyone suddenly wants a piece of the pie.”
Gardiner is well aware of the amenities his big win offered him. In the event of medical emergencies in his area, it was a “great feeling” to be able to organize the best care for his relatives with a phone call. Looking back, he says he was too young to win at the time: “If I could get in a time machine, I would ditch old Mark Gardiner and replace him with who I am now – a man with a lot of experience.”
Quellen: “Daily Mail” / RTL / “Good Morning Britain” / “Financial Times”
