Gameshow winner splurges £50,000 fast to avoid sharing

A British gameshow contestant who won £50,000 on Deal Or No Deal spent his entire windfall in less than four months to avoid sharing it with his estranged wife.

According to Britain’s Daily Mail, 33-year-old Scott Brown decided to spend the money fast after realizing the show would be screened on national television just four months after he won.

Brown, a sign manufacturer and fitter, said he used £15,000 to clear all the debts he and his wife Rachel, 29, had from, loans credit card bills and bank overdrafts.

Having set aside almost £2,000 to pay for legal fees for his divorce, he then bought clothing, household items and toys for their two young children.

Mr Brown also used some cash to ‘live off’, having being signed off from work due to ‘depression’.
But he admits he spent most of the rest enjoying life and his splurge included an iPad, a holiday in Mexico and the outlay of £4,000 on a second-hand X-type Jaguar estate car.

The final part of his winnings went days before his own August 21 deadline to pay for an electrician’s course, so he could start a new career.

As it transpired, Mr Brown was right to suspect that his wife, who he says asked him for a divorce on Christmas Day last year when he allegedly found she had been having an affair with a truck driver she met over the internet, would want to cash in on his lucky break.

As soon as the Channel 4 programme was broadcast, she went to court in a belated bid to ensure she received a share.

The case went before a district judge at Doncaster County Court last Thursday, when Mr Brown was ordered to detail in writing how the money was spent; an injunction imposed days earlier ordering him not to spend his winnings – if any remained – was kept in place; and the case was adjourned.

The couple, who are in the process of getting divorced, neither looked at or spoke to each other throughout the brief hearing.