Posted on 02/06/2018 12:22:32 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Just imagine this situation for a moment. You’ve checked your lottery tickets and discovered that you’ve won almost half a billion dollars. You’ve signed the ticket and are ready to go. What in the world would stop you at this point? That’s the issue facing one anonymous woman in New Hampshire right now. She’s got the valid winning ticket but wants the ability to receive her prize anonymously and not have her name announced for all to hear. (Washington Post)
The winning numbers triple-checked and the lottery ticket signed, the New Hampshire woman knew her life was about to change in a very positive way — except for one petrifying thing.
As the winner of last month’s $560 million Powerball, she would soon be the world’s newest owner of a nine-digit bank account.
But because of lottery rules, everyone in the world would know about it — neighbors, old high school friends, con artists, criminals.
Now the woman is asking a judge to let her keep the cash — and remain anonymous. In court documents obtained by NewHampshire.com, she is fittingly identified only as Jane Doe.
Jane Doe has a serious problem at this point because the law is not on her side. State laws require the names of lottery jackpot winners to be made public. Ms. Doe feels it violates her right to privacy and may endanger her life. This isn’t a unique problem for lottery winners. Unless you live in Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio or South Carolina, if you win the big prize, the state will publish your name.
My immediate, gut level reaction is to side with Jane Doe on this. Why shouldn’t people be allowed their privacy? It’s not illegal to win the lottery and how you handle your own finances (provided you’re not breaking the law) is your own business. If you land a new job with a great salary you’re not required to make that information public unless you work for the taxpayers. Also, as the WaPo article goes on to point out, there have actually been a significant number of jackpot winners who have been murdered in attempts to get their money. Others are blackmailed and virtually all of them are the targets of endless scammers and others seeking to separate them from their new riches.
The state has a definite, selfish motive for wanting to publicize the winners. It makes for great, free advertising to keep people playing. But they also make a case which is tough to argue with. If they never publish the names of the big winners and those people don’t come forward of their own accord, how does the public know that anyone is actually being paid and the whole thing isn’t a scam? Also, some of the people seeking anonymity may be doing so in order to hide out from debts which may be hanging over their heads.
This is one of those questions which may require a creative solution, assuming the states can be forced to accommodate the request. Perhaps some sort of independent commission which verifies the winners and keeps the names sealed but available if legal questions arise later? There’s definitely a public demand for such a solution. One poll conducted in New England a while back showed that the number one response to the question of what people would do if they won a massive jackpot was… keep it secret.
She agreed to have her name published when she purchased her ticket. This is printed right on the ticket.
That said, if I won a big jackpot, I would arrange my disappearance before making the claim. Only after my clean-slate life was established would I produce the ticket.
I like the way you think. My wife would love the way you think! As a matter of fact she probably would not want to come back.
I wonder if I could use my gun trust to claim it if I won.
YES!
There’s a policy reason behind forcing the winner to be public - public confidence in the game.
It’s important for the public to know the winner so that they know that 1. there is indeed a winner(s) and 2. the winner(s) aren’t friends or family of the lottery organizers.
To be fair, there are good policy reasons for privacy, too.
If I won, sure! But then again, I would like to know it if someone like John Corzine won the Powerball.
That is what I’ve thought I would do if I ever won.
I even have a plan for how I can spend it w/o people becoming suspicious.
Interesting thought but I have no idea.
She can now afford private security, but that is no way to live your life!
If I won and it became public I’d get the heck out of Dodge, change my number, my address, and my domicile.
I live in a small town.
If it is a government run program, not only no but hell no.
Let’s just remove every possible shred of a chance to stop crooked government bureaucrats from manipulating the process and awarding the money amongst themselves by hiding the destination of the money.
There is never any intelligent point to be made that a program can’t have an understanding that the process is public and open to public view (especially if that is stated up front and involves millions of dollars of dollars nominally overseen by the government) to minimize chances of fraud.
If people want privacy then they stay away from government lotteries.
Or government anything.
If I won the lottery I would try to not buy anything in my real legal name, you wouldn’t even have to buy a house to live in, you just give enough money to a friend or relative or legal trust to put down as a down payment on a house to live in, in their name or something like that. About the only thing you would probably have to have in your real name would be your drivers license, with an address, but that doesn’t mean you have to live at the address on the driver license, I don’t know about the address on the drivers license but I would try to get it to lead to a undeveloped vacant lot in a upper class rich closed gate neighborhood that would make it hard for con artists etc to excess the neighborhood, that would probably do the job. As far as everything else you probably could work it out friends and neighbors and relatives to have everything in their name. Stuff like your cell phones, newspapers, etc, maybe credit cards too, etc in some one else name. Not positively sure about all that stuff though legally but I would try something along that line, and also I would try to get a new name and or a second name to do legal stuff in that might not be able to be tracked. Might have to get a legal residence and citizenship in another country with a name change etc. I don’t know if you can do all that stuff but I wouldn’t doubt you could do it. I would also use debit cards instead of credit cards.
I would love to have bodyguards. LOL!
Absolutely!
Large sized lottery winners are felon killers magnets.
As long as their tax issues are clean it's nobody's business...
Surely you jest!!!!
Nothing is confidential that has a SS# (Social Security Number.) It's just a matter of how good or connected {ex-police etc., private eye, BILL COLLECTOR}, or what part of the government you are.
But I don't think I would let it stop me from collecting half a billion - would have plenty of money to help insulate myself....
However, since the ticket is a barer instrument, I’ve also seen the advice that you should sign the ticket right away, taking a picture of it front and back and putting it into a safe deposit box before going to the lottery office to ensure you can claim to be the rightful owner in case it gets into someone else’s hands.
And setting up a trust would take some time, how long I’m not sure. But unless I was absolutely 100% + confident in the attorney setting up the trust, I’m not sure I’d hand the ticket over to a lawyer who could then sign his or her own name instead of the trust, leaving the rightful winner SOL. I’d also be leery of setting up a trust unless it was set up where I had sole and 100% control of it.
Me? At this point I’d make arrangements to claim the prize rather than wasting time and money on a legal fight and as some have suggested to move, change my name, etc., and then show up to have my picture taken with my new name and but also show up for my promotional picture in my new “gender and race”. “Hey, I now identify as black male” complete with bald-plate wig and black face.
They gave her an option, which was to claim it via a trust.
The very first thing you should do with such a win is consult an attorney, etc.
Since she didn’t use that option, the prize is humongous, etc., they should probably have another option of allowing the winner to stay anonymous for some percentage or fee for which they can compensate with other advertising.
From what I read, she does want to claim it in the name of a trust but they are telling her she can't because she signed the ticket in her own name and in order to claim it in the name of a trust, the name of the trust would have to be on the ticket. I think she didn't realize that when she signed it as most of the advise you see is to sign the ticket right away.
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