if you remove / replace those anchor texts with relevant ones you might be able to salvage it. But then there's also the issue of content, because I assume that whoever spammed it with payday loans anchors also spammed it with payday loans content, too. So, you're going to have to remove that content, too, which is probably more work than it's worth (assuming that you even have access to that content to be able to clean it)...
I'd let the domain go to be honest...