She Won The Lottery And Then Lost Everything

June 5 2025

In 1999, Tonda Dickerson, a waitress at a Waffle House in Grand Bay, Alabama, received a Florida lottery ticket as a tip from a regular customer, Edward Seward. To her astonishment, the ticket turned out to be a $10 million winner. Dickerson's windfall quickly became a legal quagmire. Her coworkers sued, claiming a verbal agreement to share any lottery winnings, but the Alabama Supreme Court ruled such agreements unenforceable due to the state's gambling laws. Seward also sued.