Four Dads Who Won Big Gambling and Their Unique Stories
Ask many people to think about gambling, and they probably wouldn’t picture anything related to fatherhood. But, dads can love a casual bet just as much as anyone else – and plenty of them have won big over the years. These are the stories of just a few dads who struck lucky gambling.
A retired British builder who paid off his daughter’s debts with a £10 million lottery win. A new father visiting Korea who cashed big in a high stakes poker tournament. An American father who bought a $2 scratch off lottery ticket for his adult daughter… that won $2 million.
In one incredible case in England, a teenage father hit a £120,000 win ($162,000) with his first ever lottery ticket purchase.
Which is not to say that gamblers are all winners. Far from it. But these people certainly got lucky, and here are their stories.
Poker Streamer Scores Big a Month After Birth of Son
Ask any gambler who has one, and they’ll tell you no win is as valuable as a loving family unit. But, a big win is always welcome.
That might be at an online casino, such as jackpot city, which has a great range of high jackpot slots, unique live dealer casino game shows and the latest popular games in the Crash and Aviator genre.
Or, in the case of the following new dad, it might arrive via the world of high stakes world of tournament poker.
So it was for American Frank “Frankie C” Cucchiara in early 2025. The fast-growing young poker YouTuber had recently had a son with poker professional Kitty Huo.
Unlike Huo, Cucchiara was not yet a poker professional. Despite building up his reputation on YouTube playing cash games in Las Vegas, he was far from the level of the top pros.
Despite that, mainly due to his social media presence, just a month after he became a dad he was invited to play at a Triton High Roller Series poker tournament in Jeju, South Korea. If you didn’t know – Triton High Rollers are some of the most prestigious tournaments in poker, where people play for millions of dollars.
With the blessing of his partner, Cucchiara took the invitation. And ended up hitting third place in a 145 player tournament to make $240,000. Which was, by a very long way, the biggest poker win of his career.
Interestingly, Cuccharia later joked in an interview about his poker playing and fatherhood. He said that several top poker professionals had told him that after starting a family they “ran hot” – a poker term for sustained period of luck – like they never had before.
Teenage Dad Hits Lottery Win on First Try
Hitting a lottery jackpot is massively unlikely. Hitting a lottery jackpot on your first try is, confusingly, exactly the same odds as if you played a thousand draws in a row. But still, very unlikely.
However rare an occurrence, that is exactly what happened to one young man from England in 2023. New parent Sam Lawton, 19, hit a £120,000 Set For Life National Lottery prize on his first ever ticket purchase.
Celebrating the win with his partner Connie Bell, Lawton told the media that, at first, neither of them were sure what happened.
“Having never played before I asked Connie to take a look. But like me, she had never played before so we called her brother Craig, who’d played the National Lottery for years,” Lawton said.
“Within five minutes he was at my front door. We checked the tickets and sat there in disbelief wondering if it was true.”
The father of one matched five numbers on his first ever ticket, winning £10,000 a month for a year. He spent some of the winnings on a family holiday to New York City, before putting the rest on a deposit for a house.
Man Buys $2 Scratch-Off Ticket for Adult Daughter, Wins Big
In a more recent story, one man from Georgia, USA, unknowingly made a lifechanging offhand purchase for his daughter.
In May 2025 Vanesa Menijvar Acosta, 23-years-old and studying at college in Boston, Massachusetts, met with her father for lunch. Over their meal he gifted her a $25,000,000 Mega Money scratch off ticket that cost him $2.
The ticket ended up matching one lucky number, for a $2 million payday. The odds of hitting this prize were more than 1.5 million to 1.
According to a press release from the Massachusetts Lottery, Acosta was the first $2 million winner of the state’s $25,000,000 Mega Money game that went live a month earlier.
As well as that headline jackpot, the downtown Boston store that sold the ticket was awarded a $20,000 prize to distribute between staff.
Man Retires, Hits Lottery Jackpot and Pays Off Daughters’ Mortgages
In another recent story an English construction worker hit a £1 million National Lottery jackpot while he was considering imminent retirement.
61-year-old Terry Gillings called a day on his 40-year-career after the win. He told local media he would use the prize money to pay off the mortgages of his four adult daughters.
However, it also ended up as a sad occasion. Just days after claiming his prize, Gillings’ 81-year-old father passed away.
The Lotto winner remained stoic, however, saying news of the win may have helped calm his father’s final days.
“I like to think knowing Caroline and I, and the girls, were all well set up for the future meant he slipped away more peacefully,” Gillings said.
“My dad always said celebrate the wins, that’s exactly what we intend to do.”
Celebrating wins indeed. While gambling isn’t, and shouldn’t be, for everyone – these are just a few incredible stories of life changing lucky wins happening all across the world, every day.
