Generous Lottery Winners: The People Who Gave Fortunes Away

Generous lottery winners are rarer than the headlines suggest, but a handful of them gave away sums so large that the gifts are still working decades later. A Calgary retiree handed over a $40 million jackpot. A Nova Scotia couple in their seventies kept almost nothing. A former Episcopal monk in Tennessee turned a nine-figure Powerball prize into a foundation that funds stage productions across the United States.

These are not parables. They are documented wins with names, dates, claim dates and prize amounts on the public record, reported by outlets including CBC News, CNN, ABC News and the Associated Press. What makes them worth reading is not the moment of the win — it’s the years afterward, when the money actually moved.

Below are five of the most thoroughly documented cases of generous lottery winners, what they gave, and what happened to them after the cameras left. Some of it is uplifting. Some of it, particularly the scam traffic that follows this kind of publicity, is a warning.

Tom Crist gave away all $40 million

Tom Crist of Calgary won a $40 million Lotto Max jackpot drawn on May 3, 2013, and did not claim it until December 16 of that year, as reported by CBC News. He said he intended to give the entire amount to charity, in honour of his wife Jan, who died in February 2012 after a six-year illness. They had been married 33 years.

Crist had spent 44 years at EECOL Electric, retiring as CEO in September 2013. He told reporters he had already provided for his family through that career and did not need the jackpot. CNN and the Globe and Mail carried the same account.

The giving started immediately. Crist made an initial $1.2 million gift to the Alberta Cancer Foundation, which raises money for Calgary’s Tom Baker Cancer Centre, where Jan had been treated. He described it as the first phase, with further annual gifts planned through a family foundation he would direct.

The generous lottery winners who never moved house

Bob Erb won $25 million in British Columbia on a ticket bought at a Chevron station in New Hazelton in November 2012. Within roughly a year, CBC News reported he had given out close to $7 million around Terrace, B.C. — to neighbours, local charities, and businesses, often arriving unannounced.

The details are specific. He gave $10,000 each to staff at the gas station that sold the ticket and $20,000 to the manager. He gave $20,000 to the Happy Gang Centre for Seniors in Terrace. On a trip through Saskatchewan he left $10,000 with a restaurant owner whose daughter had a cancer diagnosis, as Global News reported.

Erb stayed in the same small house he lived in before the win. That pattern — enormous giving paired with an unchanged daily life — shows up repeatedly among generous lottery winners.

Allen and Violet Large of Lower Truro, Nova Scotia, took it furthest. The retired couple won $11.2 million in a Lotto 6/49 draw in July 2010 and later estimated they had given away about 98% of it, mostly to local charities, hospitals, churches and family. Asked what they had bought for themselves, Violet Large told CBC News: “Nothing. We haven’t bought one thing.” Allen was a retired steel welder; Violet had worked for cosmetics and chocolate companies during 30 years in Ontario.

Roy Cockrum turned a Powerball prize into a theater foundation

Roy Cockrum of Knoxville, Tennessee, won a $259.8 million Powerball jackpot in June 2014 and took a lump sum of about $153.5 million, as ABC News reported at the time. He was a Northwestern-trained actor who had spent years as an Episcopal brother under a vow of poverty.

Cockrum has said the plan predated the ticket. On a retreat in England in the mid-2000s, he saw the Royal National Theatre’s staging of “His Dark Materials” and concluded no American nonprofit theater could mount work at that scale.

He committed roughly $60 million to the Roy Cockrum Foundation, which funds large-scale productions at nonprofit theaters. It underwrote a new play at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in 2015 and, more recently, was the principal funder of the Guthrie Theater’s Shakespeare History Plays cycle, according to the Star Tribune.

Sheelah Ryan’s foundation outlived her

Sheelah Ryan, a Seminole County, Florida real estate agent, won about $55.1 million in the Florida Lotto in September 1988 — then the largest single-winner payout in US history, per the Washington Post and Deseret News. She was a widow in her sixties.

She established the Ryan Foundation that December. Reporting from Spectrum News 13 and the Buffalo News describes its work: surgeries for children whose families could not pay, low-cost housing, and overdue rent paid so single mothers avoided eviction.

Ryan died of cancer at home in 1994 at age 69. The foundation continued operating long after — the case that most clearly shows why structure matters more than intent among generous lottery winners.

What happened to generous lottery winners after the coverage

Publicity has a cost. After the Larges’ story spread internationally, con artists began sending emails impersonating the couple, promising to share the fortune with anyone who first sent a small payment. CBC News reported the scam kept circulating years later. Similar imposter emails have used Tom Crist’s name.

This is a recognized pattern. The FTC warns at consumer.ftc.gov that anyone asking you to pay a fee, taxes, or shipping to collect a prize is running a scam — real lotteries do not require an upfront payment. The winners themselves did nothing wrong; their names were simply taken.

Mark and Cindy Hill of Dearborn, Missouri, who claimed half of a record $587.5 million Powerball jackpot in November 2012 — about $293.75 million — chose visible local giving instead. CNN and the Kansas City Star documented a roughly $3 million fire station for Camden Point that opened in 2016, a scholarship fund at North Platte High School where both graduated, land for athletic fields and a picnic shelter, and land donated for a sewage treatment plant. Mark Hill died in 2019.

How US tax rules treat what generous lottery winners give

The rules differ by country, and this is description, not advice. In the United States, the IRS states in Topic No. 419 that gambling winnings — including lotteries — are fully taxable and must be reported. Payers withhold 24% federal tax on qualifying winnings above $5,000 and issue Form W-2G.

Charitable giving is handled separately. IRS Publication 526 says deductions for charitable contributions generally cannot exceed 60% of adjusted gross income, with 20%, 30% or 50% limits in some cases. The same publication states you cannot deduct the cost of the lottery tickets themselves.

Canadian prizes work differently, which is why Crist, Erb and the Larges could give at the scale they did without a US-style tax bill first. If a windfall might affect benefits such as SSI, SNAP, Medicaid or Section 8, reporting requirements generally apply and outcomes depend on the program and the household — the administering agency is the only place to get an answer for a specific case.

What winners can learn from generous lottery winners

The documented record shows a few consistent facts. Winners who gave at scale over many years — Cockrum, Ryan, Crist — did it through a foundation rather than one-off cheques. Winners who gave directly, like Erb, gave locally, in person, in amounts they decided themselves.

Several kept their existing homes and jobs-era routines. Several were already past retirement age or financially secure before winning, a detail the reporting makes plain in each case.

And in at least two of these cases, public generosity drew imposters who used the winners’ names to target strangers. That happened to the Larges and to Crist, and it happened without any involvement from them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who gave away the largest lottery prize?

Among individually documented cases, Tom Crist pledged the full $40 million Lotto Max jackpot he claimed in December 2013. Roy Cockrum committed about $60 million of a $153.5 million lump sum to his foundation.

Are lottery winnings taxable in the US?

Yes. The IRS states in Topic No. 419 that gambling winnings, including lottery prizes, are fully taxable and must be reported. Withholding of 24% applies to qualifying winnings above $5,000, with a Form W-2G issued.

Can a winner deduct money they donate?

IRS Publication 526 describes limits on charitable deductions — generally up to 60% of adjusted gross income for cash gifts, with lower limits in some situations. The specifics depend on the taxpayer; the IRS is the authority for any individual return.

Why do scammers use real winners’ names?

Because the names are verifiable, which makes the pitch look credible. The FTC advises at consumer.ftc.gov that any request to pay money upfront to claim a prize is a scam, regardless of whose name is attached.

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Sources & How to Verify

The facts on this page are drawn from official government and primary sources. Rules and figures change, so always confirm the current details with the official agency or the promotion’s own published rules.

• FTC Consumer Advice: consumer.ftc.gov — prize, sweepstakes, and lottery scam guidance
• IRS: irs.gov — how prizes and winnings are treated as income
• Social Security Administration: ssa.gov — what SSI recipients must report
• The promotion’s official rules: every legitimate sweepstakes publishes them — the rules page is always the final word

Content last reviewed August 2026. If you notice outdated information, please contact us.

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