deal (one) a bad hand

To force one to deal with an especially unfortunate or undesirable set of circumstances. Likened to receiving undesirable cards in a card game. She claims that her financial advisers dealt her a bad hand by misrepresenting how much she stood to gain from the investment. He is a really smart guy, but life dealt him a bad hand, you know? He grew up in a place where the only way out of poverty was through crime. I did my very best to manage this company well, but the universe dealt me a bad hand right from the beginning—the economic crash happened just one week before I took over.