Lou Eisenberg

On Friday 13 November 1981 Lou Eisenberg, then 53, won $5 million in New York Lotto, at the time described as the largest lottery jackpot in the world. He had been earning $225 a week changing light bulbs in a midtown Manhattan office building, and the press nicknamed him "Lightbulb Lou". The prize was paid as a 20-year annuity. He quit his job, appeared on talk shows and, with fellow winner Curtis Sharp, promoted the state lottery in television, radio and billboard advertising. He bought a Brooklyn condominium with his first wife, Bernice, and travelled extensively, and made some bad investments. When the couple divorced in 1990 he assigned her half of the remaining winnings. He met his second wife through his lottery promotional work and moved to Florida; that marriage also ended in divorce. A CBS News profile, when he was 73, found him living in a West Palm Beach apartment on about $600 a month in Social Security plus a union pension, betting on greyhounds at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, and saying he had "enjoyed every cent". By October 2009, aged 81, he was living in a mobile home on about $250 a week from his pension and Social Security.

As of October 2009, aged 81, Eisenberg was living in a mobile home in Florida on roughly $250 a week from a pension and Social Security; no later documented status was found as of September 2026.