Lottery winner shoots self after losing winning tickets

Feb 8, 2018, 12:53 pm (40 comments)

International

A lottery winner shot himself dead after he won more than $1.3 million but then lost his winning lottery tickets.

Jirawut Pongphan, 42, gathered family and friends to his house to celebrate winning a life-changing jackpot.

But he woke the next day to find his tickets gone, leaving him unable to claim his winnings.

Jirawut, from Chonburi province in eastern Thailand, had seven tickets with the winning numbers and thought he would be rich beyond his wildest dreams but his excitement was short-lived.

After almost becoming an overnight millionaire, Jirawut could not live with the sense of what he could have won.

He shot himself in the head leaving a suicide note saying: "I'm really sorry, please don't bully my family, I did win the lottery prize."

Jirawut bought seven tickets with the same numbers in the hope of maximizing his winnings.

He won the grand prize of 42,000,000 baht (US$1.3 million) in November last year.

But his excitement lasted for less than a day after his winning tickets mysteriously vanished.

Jirawut fell into a deep depression, his combination of stress and sadness leaving him unable to go to work.

On 31st January, Jirawut killed himself by placing a 9mm handgun to his left temple and pulling the trigger.

Thai police found Jirawut's body in his bedroom with his suicide lying next to him.

It is not known what happened to Jirawut's winning tickets and if anyone else came forward to claim the lottery winnings.

It is unclear if police are investigating whether or not the tickets were stolen.

News story photo(Click to display full-size in gallery)

Mirror, Lottery Post Staff

Comments

CDanaT's avatarCDanaT

those misplaced tickets sure can be stressful at various times.

Mad

Raven62's avatarRaven62

Please Play Responsibly. If you play the Lottery, here are some things to keep in mind:

1) Money needed for daily expenses should not be used for playing the Lottery.
2) Set a limit. Don't chase your losses and risk getting deeper into a hole.
3) Set some winnings aside for other purposes.
4) Winning and losing are both part of playing the Lottery and other gaming activities. If you're only prepared to win, you're not prepared to play the Lottery.
5) Playing the Lottery is a recreational activity and not an alternative to work.
6) If you do Win, Guard the Winning Ticket from Loss or Theft.

JoeBigLotto's avatarJoeBigLotto

Since he is crazy enough to kill himself maybe his crazy brain forgot how deep he buried his ticket to hide it from everyone. Don't kill yourself too early until the claim time for the ticket has expired or offer a ten percent reward to who ever found it. Lottery does really kill literally No Pity!

noise-gate

Sad. I guess money was more important than family.

There is a line in Iron Man 2 where Ivan Vanko says “ Hey Man Don’t get too attached to things...Learn to let go!”

Cassie8620's avatarCassie8620

I'm still for some reason sad. a life was lost, albeit at his own doing but still. Sad. Onlyl in your forties. Sure its older in 40+ but still

young and i am sad he felt a need to take his own life. But then again, some are more at peace when considering to do o.

 

sad story.

 

RIP.

Z4G3's avatarZ4G3

".....gathered family and friends to his house....."

                            Thinking of...

hearsetrax's avatarhearsetrax

Quote: Originally posted by JoeBigLotto on Feb 8, 2018

Since he is crazy enough to kill himself maybe his crazy brain forgot how deep he buried his ticket to hide it from everyone. Don't kill yourself too early until the claim time for the ticket has expired or offer a ten percent reward to who ever found it. Lottery does really kill literally No Pity!

Slick Nick's avatarSlick Nick

Common sense rules, keep important things in a safe area!

taggertpaul's avatartaggertpaul

That is pretty selfish act if you have a family sorry I don't feel bad for him I've never thrown away that much money but I've changed my lottery tickets where I have cost myself $18000 but whatever I got over it.

zephbe's avatarzephbe

Turn the tickets in first-celebrate second

One of the party go-ers stole his tickets.

Suzy-Dittlenose

Quote: Originally posted by Z4G3 on Feb 8, 2018

".....gathered family and friends to his house....."

                            Thinking of...

"IF" he had the winning ticket then one of his "family & friends" made off with it.  He was really stupid to celebrate before cashing in the ticket.  I don't feel sorry for this jacka$$ in any way.

No Pity!

Tony Numbers's avatarTony Numbers

WOW

Artist77's avatarArtist77

Such a sad story. No life is worth taking over any loss of money.

noise-gate

Just got to thinking : This “ sort of thing” happens more than we know.

Spouse going through a nasty divorce: decides to wipe out his whole family, including the other parent.

Jilted lover can’t stand the breakup, thinks : “If l can’t have you, no one else can, then decides to take both their lives.” Jirawut at least decided to take his own life, instead of thinking that his family would be incapable to handle life without him, so he might as well end theirs. It still makes him a selfish P**** anyway you look at it. 

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