NBA Star Gilbert Arenas Shares Lottery Winnings With Homeless Man

CALABASAS, CA — Remember last week when someone won over $300K from a lottery ticket at a Calabasas Shell station?

Turns out that lucky winner was Gilbert Arenas, the former Golden State Warriors and Washington Wizards basketball player, who still plays the numbers often despite a reported $40 million net worth.

But that’s just the beginning of a fascinating tale of chance and charity that Arenas recounted on his Instagram page Monday night. In a lengthy post, Arenas said that late on May 12, he wanted to get his lottery ticket at his “hookup station” — the Shell on Calabasas Road right off the 101 Freeway. He saw that his car was empty and he only had $10 on him, so he pulled up to another station, where a homeless man asked him for change.

Arenas said that he didn’t feel like engaging (see the full post below for his exact thoughts; warning: explicit language), so he told the man that he only had $10 and needed to get to his favorite station before it closed to buy a lottery ticket. Arenas said he offered the man $5, but the man told him he wouldn’t make it to the station on just $5, so Arenas agreed to give him $20 if he won.

Warning: NSFW language

Arenas didn’t end up making it to Calabasas in time, but the former Most Improved Player and Most Valuable Player still woke up to a text Wednesday morning congratulating him for winning $300K.

At first Arenas thought the text was a scam and ignored it. But when he got to his hookup station, manager Mehread “Mo” Kalanthary ran out and congratulated him for winning. It turns out that Kalanthary (who himself has won $15K and told Patch that Arenas has won $21K from the SuperLotto Plus) entered Arenas’ numbers for him.

“I’m for him — he paid me a bunch many times, so I’m happy at least he get some money, and I hope that today he win the jackpot,” said Kalanthary, who has managed Arenas’s favorite station for the past 19 years. “I don’t care how many millions he has — everybody who plays needs the money — poor people or rich people.”

And it turns out that a poor person and a rich person both got to share the winnings.