Callie Rogers from the United Kingdom was just 16 when she won £1.8 million ($2.23 million). The youngest lotto winner in the U.K., now aged 32, said that a person aged 16 is too young to receive such an amount of money. She advocates the age limit for playing to be pushed to 18 years of age, as, in her own words, the sudden windfall turned her life upside down.
You won’t be able to find many people who will spend their $2.25 million jackpot and think of themselves as less happy than they were when they didn’t have the money. However, Callie is one of them.
When she became a millionaire overnight while still a teenager, Callie’s life went into “a cycle of despair.” According to the lotto winner, she had to go through verbal and physical abuse. Moreover, there were many people who suddenly gathered around her to pose as friends, only to try and get inside her suddenly deep pockets. Now that the cash is gone, so are those fake friends.
The 32-year-old claimed she was glad that the money was no longer there and urged the authorities to raise the age limit for lottery gambling to at least 18. The reason for this, Rogers added, was that she was simply too young to deal with the pressure that came with such fortune. She now wants to put a stop to other kids potentially experiencing the same troublesome period of life.
Living with a Fortune
Callie, a single mom of four, is currently on a salary of £12,000 a year ($14,894). She works as a carer and is living with her two children in a rented home, which she pays £500 for ($620). Despite earning a salary which is well below the average in the U.K. (£28,677, or $35,593), Callie said she was going through the happiest period of her life.
But beforehand, when she was in the money, Callie acknowledged how she would generously shell out thousands of pounds on her friends and family. Rogers recalled the times when complete strangers would berate her, including two jealous women who went so far as to attack her physically.
According to Rogers, some of her “fake pals” still owe her in the access of £200,000 ($248,213). When she was at the height of her money and fame, she would give out her debit card to these people, who would spend money on buying gifts and Macbooks for themselves, while Callie was somewhere else partying.
Rogers praised a government consultation regarding the age limit on lottery gambling and has joined the campaign for it. The campaign has been launched amidst increasing fears over the potential negative effects gambling (and an addiction to it) can have on a child’s mental health.
Ongoing Effects
Callie said that there were still people who asked her about her lottery win every time they met her. She claimed that winning a jackpot like that, at 16, was too much of a responsibility. She was too young and wasn’t willing to listen to any advice elders would give her. Her ascension from a child to an adult happened overnight, and it still gets brought up even this many years later. Sometimes even at a job interview.
Rogers conceded that the win still hovered above her life and haunted her mentally. She said that whenever she would meet someone new, she would get anxious about what they would think of her. This would happen with new friends, partner’s family members, etc. She still sometimes suffers abuse because of who she is.
Taking the Jackpot
She remembers the moment of June 28, 2003, when she first found out that she won the jackpot, making her the youngest lotto winner in the U.K. At the time, she was sixteen years and three months old, and even then, she was aware that it was “too much” money for a teenager. Back then, she was living in her hometown Workington, Cumbria (northwest England), and she was working as a co-op shop assistant, earning an hourly wage of £3.60 ($4.47).
At first, Callie was reluctant to take that much money. She was in foster care and felt happy and settled. So this change came in at the moment when she felt satisfied for the first time in a while. Her initial response to hearing she got a £15 million jackpot was that she didn’t want that large of an amount. Even once it got shared out, and Callie checked in £1.85 million, it was still too much to grasp.
It was all unexpected for then-young Rogers, who, like all of us at 16, couldn’t realize what was ahead of her. She even asked for her old shop job back. Eventually, however, Rogers moved out and bought a house to live in with her boyfriend at the time, Nicky Lawson. With Nicky, she has two children, Kian, 14, and Debony, 11. She also brought into the world Blake (7) and Georgia (3) with a fireman, Paul Penny. However, at the time, her focus went on cars, vacations, and presents entirely.
Careless Spending
Additionally, she would always give away money recklessly. Whenever someone would ask for a loan, and such people always crop up when you’re famously rich, she would lend £10,000–£20,000 to friends of friends and distant relatives. Those loans would never get returned.
Callie said that she had a soft touch and would always say yes when someone would ask for money. Looking back at it, she said she now realized all those people did was form a fake relationship and exploit her because of her age.
When she turned 21, Nicky Lawson and Callie had a difficult time, with Callie trying to commit suicide, and they also lost custody of their children. In an attempt to improve her self-confidence, Rogers spent £17,000 ($21,100) on breast implants. She declined spending over £250,000 ($310,400) on drugs, mainly cocaine, claiming that those stories showed up only to sell papers. Rogers said that people would make up fake stories just to earn money off talking to journalists. While she agrees that she was far from perfect, Callie denies ever being “a druggie.”
Callie’s advice to young winners is to try and keep their earnings secret. For her, the publicity that came with it was the hardest thing to deal with, especially because of her background. All of a sudden, people started bringing up her past life, and Camelot (owners of the U.K. national lottery) saw their ticket sales soar after Callie won. She was pleased to be able to help her family out, but she never found money to be important, probably because, according to her, she never had it while growing up.
No Money, No Worries
The last of her winnings went on a £30,000 ($37,250) deposit for her family home, where her ex-partner Paul lives with their children. Callie said she saw it as an investment for her kids. Additionally, Callie bought a family house for her grandparents. The house is worth £140,000 ($174,000) in today’s market.
When asked about Rogers, Camelot said that they offered support to her which spanned over a number of years. Although Callie declined to take any of the legal and financial advice, Camelot’s team supported Rogers and assisted her in handling media. They added that they would carry on with supporting her in any way she’d want.