In life, some victories aren’t what they think they are. Sometimes, what we think is a setup for a comeback is actually a setback in reality, like a Bizarro Jessy Mendiola.

Here are 8 “wins” that, on hindsight, aren’t much of a “win,” after all.

Winning the lottery

The Win: Imagine making millions overnight for an investment of chump change. Well, that’s what the lottery can do to your life!

The Rub: We always think that winning the lottery would solve plenty of our problems, but the numbers tend to tell a sobering story: about 70% of the people who win it big in lotteries end up broke within seven years. Something about coming across money so quickly tends to also make it go away so quickly.

If that were the only bad thing about the lottery, that would have already been pretty scary enough, but in 2012, a lottery winner in the Philippines found himself dead after being shot by unidentified robbers, who made off with his new car and an undisclosed amount of money. Be careful what you wish for, indeed.

Creating the most famous superhero in the world

The Win: You have just created Superman, known all over the world and arguably more famous than even Jesus Christ himself. Not bad for a couple of Jewish kids, right?

The Rub: You sold your rights to the character for a pittance because you never knew it would make it big.

The story of the pioneers of the comic book industry, an industry that now props up a multi-billion dollar cinema industry powered by comics, is nothing short of heartbreaking to practically anyone not named Stan Lee. As work-for-hire, their creative output was owned by the comic book companies, and as the characters they created grew bigger and bigger in popularity and sheer monetary value, they kept being shafted of their share of that pie. Sometimes, you just wish that the character you made only got to a certain level of success that it wouldn’t make you regret selling off your character for $130, which is exactly what Siegel and Shuster, makers of Superman, did.

Your movie establishes the Sci-Fi genre

The Win: You are George Lucas, and you just made Star Wars. Boo-ya!

The Rub: You doubted yourself so much, you bet against your own movie with Steven Spielberg.

George Lucas practically gave Steven Spielberg $40 Million, when, in a fit of self-doubt, he offered 2.5% of whatever his movie made in exchange for 2.5% of whatever Steven Spielberg’s movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, made.

I think it should be obvious who won big on that.

You fight off a shark in a beach

The Win: Well, you just fought off a shark and lived to tell the tale. You’re a hero, and a pretty badass one at that.

The Rub: The story goes viral, and your office finds out you were on vacation during your “sick” leave. They then fire you.

As awesome as Paul Marshallsea was, making like an action movie hero, what wasn’t awesome was that he lied to his work to be where he was. Still, the heavy-handed response by Paul’s employers, as they sacked both him and his wife was pretty cold-hearted. They better hope they don’t encounter any sharks in their own vacations anytime soon, because Paul has very little motivation to rescue their butts after what they did to him.

You get a car, everyone gets a car

The Win: Oprah Winfrey just up and gave away cars to every single member of the audience in 2004. Wow!

The Rub: They had to pay taxes they couldn’t afford to keep those cars.

How horrible do you think you would feel if you were handed a car that was supposedly free – only to discover a few minutes later that you can’t afford this kind of “free?” What most people discovered was that on average, to keep the car, they had to pay $7000 in taxes on the spot. Given that most of these people were people who needed a car, you can probably guess they didn’t have $7000 to spare, and had to either pass up on the car, or sell the car to pay off the taxes. Oof!

A bump in Philippine tourism in 2017

The Win: Hey, look! Compared to 2010-2011, the income we’ve generated from tourism for 2016-2017 has grown by leaps and bounds!

So impressive, you guys!

The Rub: Wait, why are we comparing a statistically growing industry via 6-year jump instead of year to year?

Numbers don’t lie. People do.

To pretend that tourism numbers didn’t increase steadily over the course of the last six years, while pretending that this year’s slumping numbers is part of that steady increase (so long as you only compare 2010 to 2016) is intellectual dishonesty at its shadiest.

That is a pretty glaring dropoff in numbers from last year to this year, although hey, the year isn’t done yet. I’m sure with Maute, the drug war, random presidential rants about America and Europe,  coordinated troll strikes on Oxford University, and air strikes on the Lumad, those tourist dollars will come rolling in any day now!

… any day now!

Getting a great photo op for your cleanup drive

The Win: It’s the perfect photo op for your cleanup drive! There you are, net in hand, getting a load full of garbage out of Manila Bay, telling everyone you lead by example.

The Rub: Except you’re the one who had that garbage put in there in the first place.

Sometimes you just need to pick yourself up. pic.twitter.com/0tb2eqOoLr

— #AllianceSendOff4 (@joevemahinay) July 22, 2017

Oh.

Former President and current Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada’s cleanup drive for Manila Bay got off on the wrong foot last week when they decided to have people throw garbage into the Bay specifically so the Mayor and his cohorts can pick them up for photo ops. Photo oooops, more like.

Winning a brand new iPhone

The Win: Just for visiting an establishment, you already stand a chance of winning a brand new iPhone! Since it’s already an establishment you frequently visit, what’s not to like? More chances of winning!

The Rub: That establishment is Victoria Court – and they just announced your big win via billboard.

Whoops.

Don’t get us wrong: we won’t judge you for enjoying some time with your, err, friends in Victoria Court. That’s totally your business, and none of ours. Unfortunately, thanks to this billboard, Victoria Court has made it everyone else’s business.

Talk about being screwed twice.

What other examples can you think of? Share them with us below!