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Jimhowlett

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Feb 5, 2010, 10:31 am

You might remember him winning a then-record Powerball jackpot years ago that netted him $85 million in cash after taking the payout. He was one of the few success stories. There was a news article in a prominent publication about how he has been investing his winnings, but that was back in 2005. Has anyone since heard anything about the Idaho native?
tiggs95

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Feb 5, 2010, 10:54 am

google Brad Duke on the internet he's all over it..
Raven62

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Feb 5, 2010, 11:45 am

Quote: Originally posted by tiggs95 on Feb 5, 2010
google Brad Duke on the internet he's all over it..

Google may be too complicated for some people to use...

A mind once stretched by a new idea never returns to its original dimensions!

Catch-22: A dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.

Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges: When the republic is at its most corrupt the laws are most numerous.

The best way to learn is to never stop being an Experiential Student!
four4me

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Feb 5, 2010, 12:05 pm

Taken off of the net.

http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1526172.html

I believe that the prize for wisely handling lottery riches would have to go to 34-year old Brad Duke, of Boise Idaho. Brad was the regional manager of five Gold's Fitness Gyms, with a passion for bicycles and using bicycles for keeping fit.

In 2005 Duke won a $220 million Powerball jackpot, which he took in a lump sum of $85 million after taxes. He took the first month to assemble a team of "experts" to help him invest his money -- with the idea of becoming a billionaire by the time he was in his 50s, when "he could do some real good, with real money." Brad's investment plan:

$45 million in conservative investments, like government and municipal bonds.

$35 million in aggressive investments, like oil, gas, real estate.

$1.3 million to establish the Brad Duke family foundation

$18,000 to pay off student loans

$125,000 to pay off the mortgage on his 1,400 sq. ft. home

$12,000 for an annual gift to each family member

After these expenditures Brad Duke spent some money on himself:

$63,000 for a trip to Tahiti for Brad and 17 friends

$65,000 for new bicycles, including a $12,000 BMW road bike

$14,000 for a used black VW Jetta (He had a newer VW, which he gave to a nephew. He preferred the older car because it accommodated his bike rack better.)

Brad still teaches bicycle "spinning" classes twice a week at the Gold's Gym to his long time students. He had to give up his job as regional manager because too many people approached him with "can't miss" investments opportunities.

Brad Duke's goal of becoming a billionaire is probably just a lofty dream. After all, the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gates of the world are a very rare breed. On the other hand, it's unlikely that we'll ever find Brad Duke buying his groceries with food stamps.

Source: Lincoln Journal, Idaho Press Tribune, MSN Money

© Copyright 2009 McCook Daily Gazette

Big John says. You don't hit the number. The number hits you!!!!

I'm not Big John, I'm Four4me, Big John's a friend.
Jimhowlett

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Feb 5, 2010, 1:20 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Raven62 on Feb 5, 2010
Google may be too complicated for some people to use...

I have. I see the same old stories.
Jimhowlett

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Feb 5, 2010, 1:21 pm

Quote: Originally posted by four4me on Feb 5, 2010
Taken off of the net.

http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1526172.html

I believe that the prize for wisely handling lottery riches would have to go to 34-year old Brad Duke, of Boise Idaho. Brad was the regional manager of five Gold's Fitness Gyms, with a passion for bicycles and using bicycles for keeping fit.

In 2005 Duke won a $220 million Powerball jackpot, which he took in a lump sum of $85 million after taxes. He took the first month to assemble a team of "experts" to help him invest his money -- with the idea of becoming a billionaire by the time he was in his 50s, when "he could do some real good, with real money." Brad's investment plan:

$45 million in conservative investments, like government and municipal bonds.

$35 million in aggressive investments, like oil, gas, real estate.

$1.3 million to establish the Brad Duke family foundation

$18,000 to pay off student loans

$125,000 to pay off the mortgage on his 1,400 sq. ft. home

$12,000 for an annual gift to each family member

After these expenditures Brad Duke spent some money on himself:

$63,000 for a trip to Tahiti for Brad and 17 friends

$65,000 for new bicycles, including a $12,000 BMW road bike

$14,000 for a used black VW Jetta (He had a newer VW, which he gave to a nephew. He preferred the older car because it accommodated his bike rack better.)

Brad still teaches bicycle "spinning" classes twice a week at the Gold's Gym to his long time students. He had to give up his job as regional manager because too many people approached him with "can't miss" investments opportunities.

Brad Duke's goal of becoming a billionaire is probably just a lofty dream. After all, the Warren Buffetts and Bill Gates of the world are a very rare breed. On the other hand, it's unlikely that we'll ever find Brad Duke buying his groceries with food stamps.

Source: Lincoln Journal, Idaho Press Tribune, MSN Money

© Copyright 2009 McCook Daily Gazette

Yeah, this is pretty much the best and most detailed information I found on him. But this article is a few years old.

I guess he's really found a way to lie low. Good for him
four4me

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Feb 5, 2010, 1:34 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Jimhowlett on Feb 5, 2010
Yeah, this is pretty much the best and most detailed information I found on him. But this article is a few years old.

I guess he's really found a way to lie low. Good for him

In all likely hood if he invested his money 5 years ago then he took a bath with the rest of the stock holders as many portfolios lost close to 50%

Big John says. You don't hit the number. The number hits you!!!!

I'm not Big John, I'm Four4me, Big John's a friend.
Raven62

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Feb 5, 2010, 1:48 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Jimhowlett on Feb 5, 2010
I have. I see the same old stories.

No telling what can be learned from old stories:

"What do you think the rich people are doing today?"

"Who knows? Maybe they are right here with us."

"I'm up to $12,000 a day. And that's without any input from the asset allocation plan."

"I think I am going to win again. I like to play number games, I like to watch patterns, and I have come close a couple of times."

"If you think about it, there's really only two ways to play," he says. "You keep track of the numbers and either bet on the ones that come up most frequently, because they're 'hot,' or bet on the numbers that haven't been chosen yet, because they inevitably will be."

"Lottery commissions spend a tremendous amount of effort making sure the numbers are random so your chances of winning, no matter the system, are astronomically low."

He built a table for keeping track of the numbers and persistently worked the hot side. "I remembered it was the last day for the Powerball drawing," recalls Brad. "So I stopped and played the numbers on my table. The funny thing is that I accidentally copied down the winning series of numbers twice, only with one number wrong the second time, so I actually ended up winning both first and third place, which pushed the grand total even higher."

A mind once stretched by a new idea never returns to its original dimensions!

Catch-22: A dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions.

Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges: When the republic is at its most corrupt the laws are most numerous.

The best way to learn is to never stop being an Experiential Student!
bytheshore

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Feb 5, 2010, 3:25 pm

Quote: Originally posted by Jimhowlett on Feb 5, 2010
You might remember him winning a then-record Powerball jackpot years ago that netted him $85 million in cash after taking the payout. He was one of the few success stories. There was a news article in a prominent publication about how he has been investing his winnings, but that was back in 2005. Has anyone since heard anything about the Idaho native?

Took a little digging, but I found this (Mountain Bike magazine - Jan/Feb 2009)

Lottery Winner Brad Duke - Riding High

He doesn't say how much money he's made or lost, but at least this article is only a year old.

Already regretting delurking...
Jazi76

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Feb 5, 2010, 4:18 pm

Here is information regarding his foundation.

http://www.dukefamilyfoundation.com/our_story.php
Jazi76

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Feb 5, 2010, 4:25 pm

Quote: Originally posted by bytheshore on Feb 5, 2010
Took a little digging, but I found this (Mountain Bike magazine - Jan/Feb 2009)

Lottery Winner Brad Duke - Riding High

He doesn't say how much money he's made or lost, but at least this article is only a year old.

The below really stuck out in the article.

But he never anticipated the freakshow that would meet him back in Idaho. Strangers began to appear at Gold's to meet Duke. A flood of business proposals and letters began rolling in. "Some people around him inevitably became jealous," says Duke's longtime friend and now personal assistant, Rachel Aldous, "and accused him of being greedy or arrogant." When Duke found himself hiring security to keep people from camping on his relatively modest lawn, he realized that being "out" as a lottery winner was going to be a lot tougher than he'd expected. One example of how the jackpot changed Duke's metric of who to trust came in the heady days right after the lottery win, when he decided to become a mountain bike racing promoter. He donated a significant amount of money to support Wild Rockies, an Idaho-based race series, only to have it "questionably spent," as Duke puts it. He backed off for several years, reducing his contribution to an annual sponsorship donation (though he has since gotten back on board with new organizers and promoters). That first debacle caused him to step back and reassess everything, from his goals to his relationships.

"I knew something was up when he called me over to his house because he was having a hard time explaining to his accountant how he had spent so much on bikes," says Parrish. "Brad was holding this stack of invoices and he had no idea what a lot of it was for." Parrish had to painstakingly walk Duke through every purchase "down to the last chainring," he says. "It was definitely a test of our friendship." But Parrish knew some acquaintances had taken advantage of Duke, and that Duke had a big heart and had been struggling with how to differentiate the worthy causes from the lost ones. "Brad needed to know who he could trust," says Parrish.

As the sea of zeros wiped out life as Duke knew it and replaced it with a jagged new landscape of chaos and possibility, he stayed grounded on his bike. He assembled a core group of people around him, and required everyone—accountants, lawyers, assistants, publicists—to attend his 6 a.m. Spin class. (Even though he quit his job at Gold's three months after winning the jackpot, he continued to at least attempt to keep teaching there. He held on for a year, until that part of his old life also faded away.)

"He really tried to keep living a normal life for as long as he could," says Edward Moore, Duke's publicist. "I think he thought he would be able to do it for much longer, but eventually the enormity of the task of managing the money took over."

One time, an obese woman claiming to be on her death bed told Duke she needed money to fix things. He met with her and bought her a gym membership, workout clothes, even food for a new diet. "In the end," he says, "she just wasn't willing to go through the work of changing her life. It helped me realize that a lot of people are in desperate situations because of their choices. Even giving them money, there's no guarantee they won't be right back where they were in two years. So I had to learn to make some tough calls."

In order to determine who to help and how, Brad established the nonprofit Duke Family Foundation and put his family members on the board so they could approve funding for causes such as the Livestrong Foundation, Ride for the Cure and the YMCA. The mission was simple: Promote healthy lifestyles and positive, success-oriented attitudes toward personal growth.

"People want to believe that after you win the lottery life is easy, and the reality is that life actually gets a lot more complicated, because suddenly you have all these important decisions to make," says Duke. "I accepted that challenge, but one thing I didn't anticipate was how that would impact my family by changing the way other people viewed or treated them, and created false expectations of them."

Duke is now incredibly protective of those close to him. He declined to talk about his longtime girlfriend for this story to any greater extent than to say he was in a happy, stable relationship
Jimhowlett

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Feb 5, 2010, 7:50 pm

Thanks to Jazi76 and ByTheShore for the extra info!
Starr920

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Feb 6, 2010, 9:18 am

Quote: Originally posted by Jazi76 on Feb 5, 2010
The below really stuck out in the article.

But he never anticipated the freakshow that would meet him back in Idaho. Strangers began to appear at Gold's to meet Duke. A flood of business proposals and letters began rolling in. "Some people around him inevitably became jealous," says Duke's longtime friend and now personal assistant, Rachel Aldous, "and accused him of being greedy or arrogant." When Duke found himself hiring security to keep people from camping on his relatively modest lawn, he realized that being "out" as a lottery winner was going to be a lot tougher than he'd expected. One example of how the jackpot changed Duke's metric of who to trust came in the heady days right after the lottery win, when he decided to become a mountain bike racing promoter. He donated a significant amount of money to support Wild Rockies, an Idaho-based race series, only to have it "questionably spent," as Duke puts it. He backed off for several years, reducing his contribution to an annual sponsorship donation (though he has since gotten back on board with new organizers and promoters). That first debacle caused him to step back and reassess everything, from his goals to his relationships.

"I knew something was up when he called me over to his house because he was having a hard time explaining to his accountant how he had spent so much on bikes," says Parrish. "Brad was holding this stack of invoices and he had no idea what a lot of it was for." Parrish had to painstakingly walk Duke through every purchase "down to the last chainring," he says. "It was definitely a test of our friendship." But Parrish knew some acquaintances had taken advantage of Duke, and that Duke had a big heart and had been struggling with how to differentiate the worthy causes from the lost ones. "Brad needed to know who he could trust," says Parrish.

As the sea of zeros wiped out life as Duke knew it and replaced it with a jagged new landscape of chaos and possibility, he stayed grounded on his bike. He assembled a core group of people around him, and required everyone—accountants, lawyers, assistants, publicists—to attend his 6 a.m. Spin class. (Even though he quit his job at Gold's three months after winning the jackpot, he continued to at least attempt to keep teaching there. He held on for a year, until that part of his old life also faded away.)

"He really tried to keep living a normal life for as long as he could," says Edward Moore, Duke's publicist. "I think he thought he would be able to do it for much longer, but eventually the enormity of the task of managing the money took over."

One time, an obese woman claiming to be on her death bed told Duke she needed money to fix things. He met with her and bought her a gym membership, workout clothes, even food for a new diet. "In the end," he says, "she just wasn't willing to go through the work of changing her life. It helped me realize that a lot of people are in desperate situations because of their choices. Even giving them money, there's no guarantee they won't be right back where they were in two years. So I had to learn to make some tough calls."

In order to determine who to help and how, Brad established the nonprofit Duke Family Foundation and put his family members on the board so they could approve funding for causes such as the Livestrong Foundation, Ride for the Cure and the YMCA. The mission was simple: Promote healthy lifestyles and positive, success-oriented attitudes toward personal growth.

"People want to believe that after you win the lottery life is easy, and the reality is that life actually gets a lot more complicated, because suddenly you have all these important decisions to make," says Duke. "I accepted that challenge, but one thing I didn't anticipate was how that would impact my family by changing the way other people viewed or treated them, and created false expectations of them."

Duke is now incredibly protective of those close to him. He declined to talk about his longtime girlfriend for this story to any greater extent than to say he was in a happy, stable relationship

Wow, Jazi76 - thanks for posting this article

Brad Duke is suppose to be a model for what to do when you win the lottery

but even he had to learn how to deal with all the people coming outta woodwork

Its a good thing he has a good head on his shoulders and good people around him
Gcman

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Mar 4, 2010, 1:51 am

I grew up with Brad and my mom saw John (Brads dad) the other day and said he is "doin well".

He has always had a level head and will live a long and prosperous life.
badboy00z

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Mar 4, 2010, 5:27 am

I really don't see the point in being a billionaire. That is so much money I wouldn't know what to spend it on. I would be happy with a house no more than 3000 sq ft. and a few cars. Lol.

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