‘Lottery Scam Made Me A Champion,’ Claims Former Boxer Chris Eubank Sr

Former boxer Chris Eubank Sr. has claimed he once won the lottery in New York but was scammed out of a six-figure prize by a dishonest grocery store clerk.

The British former middleweight and super-middleweight WBO world champion, 54, revealed on Twitter this week that the experience of being conned out of such a large sum of money, in 1984 at the tender age of 18, fueled his ambition to succeed, and without it he wouldn’t have become a world champion just six years later.

“I won the lottery in 1984 at [age] 18 in New York City,” he declared over the weekend. “I got five out of six numbers and should have won over $100,000.

The guy in the grocery store said it’s five numbers and the pay-out is $25 and naive me took it. If he didn’t cheat me, I would have lost my focus to make champion six years later. God is good.”

English Eccentric

Eubank was a dominant force in middleweight boxing in the 1990s, reigning as world champion for more than five years, and was undefeated for the first decade of his professional career.

His eccentricity, self-confidence, and perceived arrogance made him one of boxing’s most striking figures at the time. Despite being a black man of humble origins, he affected the tone and dress of a white, upper-class English gentleman, often wearing tailored tweed suits, jodhpurs, a bowler hat, and a monocle.

“I really cannot see what is so difficult to believe about my lottery true story,” tweeted Eubank, in response to his doubters. “When you don’t get what you want, it is sometimes for your own good.”

True Story?

Eubank may have a flair for drama, but the facts check out. In 1984, you would have won around $100,000 for five numbers on the New York lottery. Significantly, just a year later, changes were adopted that meant winners with five numbers won a lot less than that.

And he was in New York in 1984. Having been raised in South London by his father, where he was continually expelled from school – for “gallantly” protecting the other kids from bullies, he has said – he was sent to live with his mother in the South Bronx when he was 16.

Eubank has recently been guiding the career of his son, Chris Eubank Jr. – also a champion middleweight — although not one who has, as far as we know, experienced the benefits of greatness-instilling lottery fraud.