Liam O’Connor

A few years back, I won the lottery in a syndicate. And I wish it had never happened.

I’m 56 years old, living in a small town near Cork, Ireland. I used to work behind the bar in a cozy pub here. It was a job I loved, where friendships and acquaintances blossomed over time. We set up a lottery syndicate with 18 regulars to increase our chances of winning. I was the one who took care of all the organizational bits, being the game leader and all.

One day, the impossible happened: we hit the jackpot with 120 million euros. That’s 6.6 million each. It seemed like a blessing, but it turned out to be anything but.

An older friend from the group suffered a heart attack upon hearing the news. A few hours later, he passed away in the local hospital. That was just the beginning.

When the winnings were paid out, things spiraled out of control. One fellow bought a sports car and died in a crash two weeks later. Another member opted for plastic surgery in Turkey and didn’t survive the anesthetic. She developed sepsis and passed away in a foreign hospital.

Being from a small town, our windfall turned us into local celebrities. Tabloids splashed our faces everywhere, and tourists and beggars started swarming around us. The begging letters and even blackmail threats flooded in. One of our group was murdered and found dead on the beach, a victim of this nightmare.

The stress was unbearable. Many of us turned to alcohol to cope, myself included. The harassment from customers became too much, and I had to leave my beloved job at the pub. I retreated to a new house on the coast and rarely ventured outside.

Money, I learned, can bring more misery than joy. It claimed the lives of friends and brought turmoil to our small community. If I could go back, I’d give it all up in a heartbeat. Never did I think that winning the lottery could make me so utterly unhappy.