In 2002, Michael Carroll, then a 19-year-old garbage collector in the UK, suddenly struck gold, winning a massive lottery jackpot worth 12 million dollars (£9.7 million). Overnight, he went from a working-class teen to a tabloid fixture.

Carroll promptly blew the entire fortune on a notoriously wild lifestyle: buying mansions, funding excessive drug use, throwing lavish parties, accumulating cars, and heavy gambling. His reckless spending earned him the infamous nickname, the “Lotto Lout” (Lottery Ruffian). Predictably, by the end of the decade, the money was entirely gone.

The Full Circle and Unapologetic Stance

By 2010, Carroll had returned to manual labor. Today, he works delivering coal, a stark contrast to his millionaire years.

Yet, in interviews, Carroll has remained completely unapologetic about his choices. He once famously declared: “I’d do it all over again.” His spectacular rise and fall became a modern parable—not just about the fragility of wealth, but about an individual who lived his life on his own terms without looking back or caring for public judgment.