While hitting the jackpot is everybody’s dream, winning a lottery could end up being a curse for some.

Forty-nine-year-old Kim had the rare luck of winning a 3.5 billion won lottery but it was the start of extreme difficulties: he squandered all the money and lost all his friends in less than two years. Worse, he may possibly be imprisoned as a court Wednesday sentenced him to a jail term.

Kim and six of his friends he met at a gambling group bought 14 lottery tickets in 2007 in Daegu and kept two each. They decided to let the one with the winning ticket keep half the prize money and the six others would divide the rest between them.

Things got messier when Kim actually won first prize andreceived 3.5 billion won in cash.

Kim, who was 600 million won in debt, received the money under his brother’s name, paid off his debt and ran away with the rest. He quit his job and did not contact his friends.

It was months later when the friends found out that something was amiss because Kim was rumored to have bought himself a new car and other items.

They filed a suit against Kim to pay them a total of 1.7 billion won and Kim lost. However, he had already spent all the money by paying off the debt and making unsuccessful stock investments.

The six people later filed another suit for embezzlement.

The Seoul Eastern District Court acknowledged that Kim did not follow the court order and gave him a one-year-prison term suspended for two years.

Judge Kim Young-hun, however, dismissed the charges of embezzlement saying, “The seven people did not clarify how to confirm the winning of the lottery. Since Kim held the lottery ticket in the first place, the prize money belongs to Kim.”