Go Fund Me Pages Spring Up as Broke People Look For Money After Spending All Theirs on Powerball Tickets

When the Powerball jackpot hit the $1.5 billion mark on Wednesday, even people who never play the lottery were picking up a ticket or two. As we all know by now, that jackpot was won, and will be split up among multiple winners. In the aftermath of Powerball fever, some people are in extreme recovery mode.

Despite warnings from state lottery officials and gambling addiction organizations, some people decided to wager their entire savings on the 1 in 292.2 million odds at the big jackpot.

Multiple posts on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe have popped up, asking for help getting their bank accounts back above the empty mark. Here are a couple of the excuses, err, explanations people think others should give them money after blowing their savings:

• "Just like a lot of you, I wasted my last 15 dollars on the lottery. I need to back." - Maygan Washington 
• "I'm raising money to replenish my bank account after spending a tremendous amount of money on the powerball! I was uneducated about the chances of me winning! And now I'm Broke! Please help in anyway possible thank you." - gio'Vanni Dior Hickerson

Some of the postings are pretty obviously trolling, but there have been some that seem like legitimate sob stories. Some of the posts that have popped up on the site have been taken down, either by the poster or by GoFundMe.

One such example is a post by a woman named Cinnamon from Tennessee, who posted a plea for financial help on GoFundMe that was covered by Yahoo. In her post, she said the following:

Please help me and my family as we have exausted all of our funds. We spent all of our money on lottery tickets (expecting to win the 1.5 billion) and are now in dire need of cash. With your small donation of at least $1.00, a like and one share, I’m certain that we will be able to pick ourselves up from the trenches of this lost and spend another fortune trying to hit it big again! PLEASE, won’t you help a family in need. DONATE NOW.

Her post can no longer be found on the site.

For the stories that are true, where an individual legitimately tapped themselves out trying to win, it is tragic. These people obviously need help with gambling addiction problem. At the same time, it's hard to feel too motivated to offer financial help when they probably need to learn the hard way that handouts (in the form of a lottery jackpot, or donations on a website) shouldn't be relied on.