Lou Eisenberg

Lou Eisenberg was a maintenance man who changed light bulbs in a midtown Manhattan office building for $225 a week. He bought a New York Lotto ticket on Friday 13 November 1981, and his numbers came up for a $5 million jackpot, then billed as the largest lottery prize in the world. UPI's 1984 list of US jackpot records names Louis Eisenberg of Brooklyn as the winner on 14 November 1981, with the prize payable in 20 annual instalments of $238,168.74 rather than as a lump sum. The press nicknamed him "Lightbulb Lou". He quit his job and became a New York Lottery advertising face alongside fellow winner Curtis Sharpe. He and his first wife Bernice bought a Brooklyn condominium and travelled; when they divorced in 1990 he assigned her half the remaining payments. He later moved to Florida and bet on greyhounds at the Palm Beach Kennel Club. CBS News reported his income in later life as a $600 monthly Social Security payment plus a union pension of several hundred dollars a month, and an apartment in West Palm Beach.

Eisenberg died at home in West Palm Beach, Florida, on 31 August 2021, aged 93 (2021). His last documented income was a roughly $600 monthly Social Security payment plus a small union pension.