A man who won the biggest lottery jackpot in the world has spent it on mansions and fancy cars – exactly what experts say he shouldn’t have done.
Edwin Castro, 31, who landed a $2.04billlion Powerball jackpot, has already bought a $47million Bel-Air home, a $25.5million Hollywood Hills house and a $4million Altadena residence.
He has also purchased antique sports cars and hired private security to guard his possessions.
They sound like moves that anyone in his position would do, though there has been no lottery winner before him to take home as much as he has. Castro in 2022 opted for a lump sum payment of $997.6million, or £792.6million, instead of monthly payments. After taxes, Castro received roughly $628million, or £500million.
Castro has actually done ‘everything you shouldn’t do’, said Jacob Turner, a founding partner of Moment Private Wealth. Turner flagged the fancy cars and ‘$76,000,000 (worth) of homes for those keeping track’ as bad spending habits, LADbible reported.
Instead, Castro should have ‘invested the rest of the money in a diversified portfolio’, which would still leave him with more than one million to spend per month independent of interest rates, Turner said.
Wells Fargo employee Emily Irwin, who advises lottery winners, said that lottery winners should ‘try to avoid that mega-purchase’ and refrain from changing their lifestyles drastically.
‘Don’t quit your job, don’t go out and buy a Ferrari, don’t buy a mansion,’ Irwin told Fortune last year.
Spending strategy aside, Castro has already run into problems with his fortune.
A man sued Castro alleging that he stole the winning ticket from him. The legal papers were served to Castro’s Hollywood mansion in May 2023. Castro got lucky in October, when a Los Angeles County judge tossed the plaintiff’s suit and allowed him to keep his record-breaking jackpot in full.
Castro has since gone public on social media with his girlfriend Payten Vincent, 24, who is a model who previously worked as a Starbucks barista and TD Bank teller. The couple were recently seen dining at the high-end restaurant Nobu in Los Angeles.
It is unknown how much of his wealth Castro has gone through, and if he has invested any of it.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
