He won a Super Bowl as a linebacker with the Dallas Cowboys in 1978, but Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson beat even bigger odds when he bought 20 Lotto Texas tickets in an Austin pharmacy in March 2000 and wound up with a $10.4 million lump payment. "I was already worth maybe $2 million when I won," says Henderson, 49. "So I splurged on my family."

He bought new homes for his two ex-wives and daughter Thomesa, 23, and gave $10,000 to each of 50 friends and relatives. Active in several charities and anti-substance-abuse projects (he's a former drug addict), Henderson also sold his condo in an upscale Austin neighborhood and built a bungalow in the low-income, high-crime part of town where he grew up. "Something deep inside was telling me to go home," he says. "Go all the way home."

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