Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions

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Overview

In his wry and funny memoir, Edward Ugel tells the story of America's addiction to the lottery from an astonishing angle.

At age twenty-six, Ed found himself broke, knee-deep in gambling debt, and moving back into his parents' basement. It all changed, however, when he serendipitously landed a job as a salesman for The Firm—a company that offered up-front cash to lottery winners in exchange for their prize money, often paid in agonizingly small annual payments, some lasting up to twenty-five years. For the better part of the ensuing decade, Ed spent his time closing deals with lottery winners, making a lucrative and legitimate—if sometimes not-so-nice—living by taking advantage of their weaknesses . . . weaknesses he knew all too well.

Ed met hundreds of lottery winners and saw up-close the often hilarious, sometime sad outcome when great wealth is dropped on ordinary people. Once lottery winners realized their "dream-come-true" multimillion jackpots were not all that they were cracked up to be, Ed would knock on their door, offering them the cash they wanted-and often desperately need. This cash sometimes came at a high price, but winners were rarely in a position to walk the other way. As Ed learned, few of them had the financial savvy to keep up with the lottery-winner lifestyle. In fact, some just wanted their old lives back.

A charmingly neurotic gambler, Ed traveled deep into the heart of the country where he discovered the American Dream looks a lot like a day at the casino. And Ed knows casinos. In fact, his own taste for gambling gave him a unique insight into lottery winners: he intimately understood their mindset, making it that mucheasier to relate to them. And like lottery winners, Ed struggled to find balance in his own life as his increasing success earned him a bigger and bigger salary. Even as he relished his accomplishments, he grappled with the question: "If you are good at something that is bad for some people, does that make you a bad person?"

Ed Ugel takes the readers inside the captivating world of lottery winners and shows us how lotteries and gambling have become deeply inscribed in every aspect of American life shaping our image of success and good fortune. Money for Nothing is a witty, wise, and often outrageously funny account of high expectations and easy money.

Editorial Reviews

Booklist
Ugel, a gambler since age 19, tells a sordid tale of gambling addiction, and we all have much to learn from the author’s important perspective on the proliferation of gambling opportunities. Written in an informal, sometimes humorous manner, this book contains excellent information for library patrons.
More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
“A jackpot of sleaze and hilarity”

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061284182
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 9/23/2008
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 256
  • Sales rank: 884,292
  • Product dimensions: 5.54 (w) x 10.88 (h) x 0.65 (d)

Meet the Author

Edward Ugel
Edward Ugel

Sales and marketing expert Edward Ugel spent his late twenties and early thirties working among the nation's most infamous lottery winners and gamblers in the high-stakes lump sum industry. He writes for the Huffington Post and has also written for the New York Times and contributed to PRI's This American Life.

Read an Excerpt

Money for Nothing
One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions

Chapter One

Gonzo Goes Fishing

August 1997: Southeast Florida

I am watching Tommy roll another joint, one-handed, while driving his new boat straight out of the inlet into the Atlantic Ocean. I'm laughing so hard it's making me even more nervous, happy, sad, stunned. I just made a serious commission off this guy and he's taking me out fishing, too. Forty minutes ago, we were at his bank notarizing the signature pages of his contract. Now, we're off the clock.

Thank God I left the contracts in the car. There's sea spray everywhere. They would be soaked, and I'd be beside myself—just beside myself.

Tommy's someone you like right away. Three years ago, he won a handful of millions in the Florida Lottery. Tommy swears he was happier before he won. I know he's telling the truth. That's one of the reasons he trusts me—because I know it's true. Two days ago, he called our office looking for money after seeing our commercial on The Jerry Springer Show. Within seconds I knew. This could be big.

Tommy's wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off jean shorts. He is tan, his skin leathered from a life on the water. This is not his first time in the sun. I, on the other hand, am fat and pale. A chain smoker, Tommy sounds like a young Wilford Brimley. I like him a lot. I just do. He's funny—and we both love to fish. But I can tell that he can be a mean son of a bitch. If he only knew. . .

The sun feels like it's thirty feet over my head. I'm burning everywhere. This is not the kind of boat where you golathering yourself up with SPF 45. I imagine Tommy would not be inclined to rub the lotion into my tough-to-reach areas. I will burn like a man. I hate being manly. I want a Diet Coke. All we have is Budweiser.

I'm sweating. Tommy yells something to me. I hear nothing over the screams of the two huge engines mounted on the back. One engine would definitely be enough for this boat, but we have two . . . lucky us. Typical lottery winner, the nouveau riche of the nouveau riche. They buy two of everything when one will do.

Tommy looks back and hands me the lit joint. He says something. I can't hear him over the goddamn engines. I'm pretty sure he said something about the money. I laugh as if to infer that I both heard him and agree with whatever he just said. At this point, it's best to just agree.

I'm in no mood to smoke, but I'm not about to refuse his offer. I take a long, deliberate drag on the joint. I close the back of my mouth so I look like I'm toking away. The smoke gets sucked into the engine exhaust before I inhale it. Tommy doesn't notice. Lesson 101 in sales: If a customer offers you something to drink or eat, you accept. It's just good manners and it puts the other person at ease. It's good for business—any business.

It's 3:45 in the afternoon and I'm faking a joint with a client. Why? Because he wants to, and I'm here to make him comfortable. Not a typical day at Smith Barney or Goldman Sachs. It is, to be sure, closer to car sales—very expensive cars.

Tommy is going this fast to (a) test me, (b) scare me, or (c) impress me. He has actually done (d) make me want my nana. I'm too numb and hot and happy about the deal to be truly scared. But deep down, I know I'm in a tight spot. At the very least . . . the very least, I'm not exactly acting like the son my father raised. Pretending to smoke a joint with a lottery winner just after signing a deal with him is not quite the career my dad had in mind for me.

I think Tommy just said something about his lawyer reading a copy of the docs. Goddamn engine noise. It doesn't matter now. The deal's signed. I nod and smile. All I can think about is holding onto any part of the boat that is bolted down—and not dying. The skin cancer I'm bound to get is a longer-term issue. Falling out of the boat, three miles out to sea with a stoned multimillionaire, is a more pressing concern.

Tommy has no idea how we make our money. They never do. He thinks we're fishing buddies. I wish we were. I will be sorry to disappoint him—that part always stings. But, in the end, more times than not, these deals are one-night stands. He offered to put me up at his house, for Christ's sake. He didn't even want me to check into a hotel. He can roll a goddamn joint with one hand. I like Tommy. I could use a friend like him in my real life.

In two weeks, he will threaten to kill me. He will mean it. And I will deserve it.

What kind of job makes all this possible, necessary even? To see the lump-sum business for what it really is, to understand that it has next to nothing to do with finance and numbers, you have to appreciate the kind of folks that win the lottery and the kind of guys who wait in the weeds for them to surface.

Tommy's first call to The Firm surfaced late in the evening, when decent folks were already home. I was with Ben at the bar, for a change. We were both still in our work clothes, as we'd come straight from the office—four hours ago. We were still working, in a sense, as our cell phones kept ringing with sales reps from all over the country calling in to give us (Ben, really) updates on the status of their deals. So far that night, over a handful of cocktails, we'd both made money as two deals had been signed, all while we guarded our favorite bar stools.

Money for Nothing
One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions. Copyright © by Edward Ugel. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Table of Contents


Introduction     XV
Gonzo Goes Fishing     1
Lottery for Dummies     25
Everything You'll Wish You Never Knew About Winning the Lottery     36
Go West, My Son     49
The Firm     65
Can You Hear Me in the Back?     105
Sally Stone     114
What is the Sound of No Hands Clapping?     154
Every Time I Try to Get Out, They Pull Me Back In     166
Of All the Gin Joints, in All the Towns, in All the World     182
Senior Vice President of My Basement     199
Epilogue: The Gamble in Me     211
Endnotes     237
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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 26, 2008

    Ugel's Memoir Reveals Gambling Addiction

    Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions--an intriguing title for an intriguing book just out by Edward Ugel. So you like to gamble? Maybe just buy lottery tickets? Reading this non-fiction, astonishing book may be the best thing you've ever done for yourself. Ugel tells all in his story about his years as both a gambler, and a salesman, and then as an employee of a company that offered upfront cash to lottery winners in exchange for their prize money. You've all seen the commercial for some company that offers cash that is due to you. All of the people cry out from wherever they are that it's their money and they want it now. If that company, called The Firm, in this book, is one that caters only to lottery winners, however, there are oftentimes millions of dollars involved--and even though the winner may have won big, they may be as poor as ever! One of the key issues is whether the particular lottery allows a lump sum as opposed to long-term payments. Selection of a lump sum has not always been available. Additionally, when you see the picture of the winner getting a large check with a large sum identified on it, the amount is always the amount before taxes! Horror story after horror story for lottery winners are shared in this book--all names changed, of course. Ugel has tried hard to write in an upbeat fashion in telling his story. His chapter titles are catchy. He ridicules some of his own actions and invites the reader to smile and commiserate with his choices. But he's not really telling about a fun-filled life. The book, in my opinion, is very much an expose' of this type of financial company, albeit though they are acting legally. Additionally, Ugel's epilogue, written in a time schedule/diary fashion reveals exactly what the addicted gambler goes through each time he gives in to this vice. Ugel has been a gambler since the age of 19, working at jobs to earn enough money so he could go gamble. When he was called to a bar by a friend, where a potential supervisor was drinking and smoking, Ugel thought he had finally found the place where he belonged. Indeed, while his boss was there at the The Firm with him, he quickly moved into big money and promotions, each time his boss moved up. But no matter how far up he went, he at last began to hate working with the man and quit, even though he was offered almost twice his present salary to stay. Ugel struggled through the following time, until he was called and asked to return. His former boss had quit and he was being offered his job. This had been what he had always wanted. He believed he could do the job and was soon back at The Firm. Ugel did all right until his former boss opened his own business as a major competitor and quickly started winning potential customers away from The Firm. Ugel was finally relieved to be fired, for even though he was a super salesman, he realized that he had treated his job, and allowed his subordinates to also treat their jobs, as if each 'lead' was merely a 'gamble' and since there was always the potential for high commissions without working too hard, he realized that though being a better 'gambler' than his former boss, he was not even close to being the kind of manager that his boss had been. As he said, 'a gambler is a gambler is a gambler' (p. 212). He and his staff were quite willing to gamble both with their own money...and with the lottery winners' money! Many of us have our own addictions. If gambling is yours...read this book! If gambling is not your particular vice, read it...and insert your own predilection. For underneath the humor, Ugel has written a story that just may help you rethink what you are doing, to yourself, to your family, and on your job! Thank you, Edward Ugel, for sharing your life in such an open way and making us realize that Money for Nothing may be more trouble than anyone could imagine!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 20, 2007

    Giving this to everyone I know!!!

    From the opening page to the final chapter, I was enthralled by Money for Nothing. Ugel should be a stand up comedian and I hope he puts another book out soon. What an amazing story from start to finish. Anyone who has ever played the lottery should pick up this book. Anyone who has ever been in a casino should pick up this book. I am giving this book to everyone I know!!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 20, 2007

    An extremely funny eye opener!

    To put it bluntly, this book was the FUNNIEST non-fiction book I have read this year!! Yeah, I play the lottery and have dreams of hitting it big (who doesn't?). But I for the life of me can't imagine hitting it big and then losing it all!!! This book was kinda voyeuristic for me because I got a glimpse into a lifestyle that I (might) like. I also got a glimpse into the lives of people who won everthing and then LOST everything! I always wondered what goes through the mind of these people and how they lose it all. Well... Ed gives us a rare and funny insight to them and how he was once part of a company that helped them down this road! People before me have said that this book is funny and it it!! This book will have you laughing and shaking your head! Ed has an extremely funny writing style and is very entertaining. I usually avoid non-fiction like Hillary Clinton and honest doners, but something about this book was just...well... just honest. This book should go straight to the top of your 'to read' list.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 20, 2007

    Humorous & Fascinating Page Turner

    I love a quick read, A BOOK THAT YOU CAN'T PUT DOWN, and 'Money for Nothing' is definitely one of these. Mr. Ugel writes with humor and candor about his time spent in the lump sum lottery business. He tells real stories about real winners, many of whom wind up losers in the end. The book is also a memoir about a guy in his 20s and 30s who loves to gamble, loves his family, and tries to figure out who he is while working in this somewhat bizarre niche industry. I laughed out loud numerous times, and my mouth dropped open in amazement with some of the fascinating stories. If you want a well-written, funny, intriguing book, then buy this one now.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 19, 2007

    Not worth the time of day

    I guess one can only say that this book falls into the 'OJ Genre' - another story by someone trying to make a buck off of something they would have been wiser not to talk about - anyone bothering to read this either has more time on their hands than they should or enjoys poorly written books.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 18, 2007

    GREAT read - couldn't put it down

    Fantastic, fascinating memoir and behind-the-scenes look at lotteries and the sad situations of many lottery winners. Hilarious, self-depracating, thought-provoking and at times, heartwrenching. LOVED this book!

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