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Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

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Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#21

Post by nebulous1 »

The lottery/state officials' story seems to be somewhat at odds with itself.

They say that they have to be open (makes sense) but they also allow you to claim via an anonymous trust, but she can't do that because she signed it. Feels like they could privately identify her to make sure she's the name on the ticket and then do the public part via a trust.

This might not fit the way the relevant laws are written, but they can't say that they're fighting in the interest of openness by not allowing this but allowing the anonymous trust in the first place.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#22

Post by bachmeier »

_m8fo wrote: post #12

I honestly don't see the issue. The only reason the lotto works is because people know you can win and it's not rigged, and the only way you can know that is by making the winners public. Finally, the only reason said lottery was $XXXM is because of the people who tried and failed, funding it. I doubt lotteries would pay such large amounts long term if anonymous lotteries were standard as fraud is inevitable. Being a…

If the only way to prove the lottery is legit is to make the names of winners public, why not just make up a name?

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#23

Post by artursapek »

jonlucc wrote: post #9
tlb wrote: post #4

I understand why people don't want everyone to know they're rich. I'm rich (not $560M, but some) and you can figure that out from various news stories, and it does affect relationships somewhat. More so outside Silicon Valley. On the other hand, I understand why lotteries want to publicize winners in their marketing. A fair deal might be, that the publicity value is defined to be X% (say 10%) of the prize, and you ca…

If I'm not mistaken, it's about more than just publicity; it's also about avoiding fraud. As someone put it before "come spend money on a chance to win a very large pot of money; don't worry, we have given some out before, but you just have to believe us".

You'd think the government could keep records of this and catch fraudulent lotteries, without forcing the winners to be public.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#24

Post by root_axis »

jonlucc wrote: post #9
tlb wrote: post #4

I understand why people don't want everyone to know they're rich. I'm rich (not $560M, but some) and you can figure that out from various news stories, and it does affect relationships somewhat. More so outside Silicon Valley. On the other hand, I understand why lotteries want to publicize winners in their marketing. A fair deal might be, that the publicity value is defined to be X% (say 10%) of the prize, and you ca…

If I'm not mistaken, it's about more than just publicity; it's also about avoiding fraud. As someone put it before "come spend money on a chance to win a very large pot of money; don't worry, we have given some out before, but you just have to believe us".

Indeed, and we know people with privileged access have successfully abused the system in the past.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/programmer-pleads-guilt...

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#25

Post by Someone1234 »

jonlucc wrote: post #9
tlb wrote: post #4

I understand why people don't want everyone to know they're rich. I'm rich (not $560M, but some) and you can figure that out from various news stories, and it does affect relationships somewhat. More so outside Silicon Valley. On the other hand, I understand why lotteries want to publicize winners in their marketing. A fair deal might be, that the publicity value is defined to be X% (say 10%) of the prize, and you ca…

If I'm not mistaken, it's about more than just publicity; it's also about avoiding fraud. As someone put it before "come spend money on a chance to win a very large pot of money; don't worry, we have given some out before, but you just have to believe us".

Yet other countries (and even some states) get by without releasing the name. All you need is oversight, which frankly should be a prerequisite of a lottery either way. The real question is why investigative journalists are America's means of oversight rather than have a real system in-place?

The whole thing places lottery winners into a dangerous situation, and everyone knows it. That's why the stereotypical "change your name and move" advice is so often recited.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#26

Post by Splines »

Pharylon wrote: post #16
Waterluvian wrote: post #5

My understanding is that the lotto wants free advertising at the cost of the winners being made very public. It seems like this individual is doing a tremendous public service by taking this to court. I think most of us would balk at the risk of somehow losing the millions of dollars.

The point of it is to avoid fraud.

But how does making the winner's name public avoid fraud? I assume the government needs to look at something and say "looks legit". So couldn't they do that in private? Have some judge or gov't official put their stamp on it and say "yes, the winner was a real person not affiliated with the lottery" or whatever needs to happen.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#27

Post by ryanianian »

fourstar wrote: post #18
ryanianian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't to have sympathy for her. The point is to call out violations of privacy for anyone - no matter how much money they have.

You play the game. You accept the rules. That's how it works. You ever use Google? You are complying to their TOS.

You're right, but the fact is she could have been anonymous if she'd known about "this one weird trick to maintain your privacy" (i.e. setting up a trust).

Cases like this (1) call out non-obvious legal stipulations for the majority of us that don't read/understand every bullet-point of a TOS and (2) question the legality of such stipulations.

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#28

Post by simcop2387 »

jonlucc wrote: post #9
tlb wrote: post #4

I understand why people don't want everyone to know they're rich. I'm rich (not $560M, but some) and you can figure that out from various news stories, and it does affect relationships somewhat. More so outside Silicon Valley. On the other hand, I understand why lotteries want to publicize winners in their marketing. A fair deal might be, that the publicity value is defined to be X% (say 10%) of the prize, and you ca…

If I'm not mistaken, it's about more than just publicity; it's also about avoiding fraud. As someone put it before "come spend money on a chance to win a very large pot of money; don't worry, we have given some out before, but you just have to believe us".

That's entirely why a number of states require it to be kept non-anonymous for winnings above certain amounts. Because the lottery is run by a private organization they don't want that org to be able to act like it's paying out without providing proof to the public. Otherwise you can end up with situations like the mcdonalds monopoly scam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Monopoly#Fraud

Re: Lottery winner asking a judge to let her keep the cash and remain anonymous

#30

Post by kneel »

_m8fo wrote: post #12

I honestly don't see the issue. The only reason the lotto works is because people know you can win and it's not rigged, and the only way you can know that is by making the winners public. Finally, the only reason said lottery was $XXXM is because of the people who tried and failed, funding it. I doubt lotteries would pay such large amounts long term if anonymous lotteries were standard as fraud is inevitable. Being a…

>Seems fair to me. Am I missing something?

Rules rarely apply to rich people.

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