Brad Duke - smart winner

Brad Duke, 34, a manager for five Gold's Gym franchises in Idaho, pocketed a lump sum of $85 million after winning a $220 million Powerball jackpot in 2005. He spent the first month of his new life assembling a team of financial advisors. His goal: to use his winnings to become a billionaire.
Here's what Duke has done with his money so far.

• $45 million: Safe, low-risk investments such as municipal bonds


• $35 million: Aggressive investments like oil and gas and real estate


• $1.3 million: A family foundation


• $63,000: A trip to Tahiti with 17 friends


• $125,000: Mortgage retired on his 1,400-square-foot house


• $18,000: Student-loan repayment


• $65,000: New bicycles, including a $12,000 BMC road bike


• $14,500: A used black VW Jetta


• $12,000: Annual gift to each family member

Did he really expected to win? He answers:
I played the lottery often when I won. I had developed a little numbering system. Since I've won, there's been a lot of numbering systems for lotteries all over the Internet. Before that, there weren't any. I really thought I was going to win. I even wrote it down in my journal in 2002.

First purchase is important - what was his?
A trip to Tahiti for me and 17 of my friends. At the same time, I paid off my mortgage and student loans. [What was your biggest purchase?] The family foundation was the biggest allotment of money. $1.3 million.

Did he quit his job right away? You'll be surprised:
I still teach a spinning class there twice a week. I took some time off after the whole thing because everybody had investment opportunities that were the greatest thing since sliced bread, and there were 100 of them every day. So I had to get out of there for a while, but when I went back, the people I'd been teaching for the last 8 years were still the same people, and I was still the same instructor.

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