Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

msn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 230 posts

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

#61

Post by wahern »

wyldfire wrote: post #43
sosuke wrote: post #3

If you don't happen to read the article and think to mention the anonymous trust way of accepting the winnings. She can't do that either. "The state allows people to form an anonymous trust, NewHampshire.com reported, but it’s a moot point for the woman — she signed her name on the back of the ticket shortly after winning, and altering the signature would nullify the ticket." Oh and an excellent tidbit out of the sto…

> She can't do that either. But, why? Because she accidentally signed the ticket before realizing that it invalidated that option? She holds the winning ticket, just let her redact her signature from it legitimately and claim her winnings.

The question is whether the law establishing the lottery permits that, and if so what clear limits the court can put into place so that the agency operating the lottery doesn't have to contend with too many complex scenarios that could ultimately result. Money attracts litigation, especially when the rules aren't crystal clear.

It sucks for this woman, but technically she could always forgo the winnings altogether. Nobody is forcing her to take the money, or to keep it. She wants to have her cake and eat it too. What's she's asking is reasonable on its face, but there are larger considerations at play.

The legislature is still free to address this woman's concerns directly, as well as for future winners. Ideally that's what would really happen. Maybe she should pledge some donations to her friendly neighborhood representatives.

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

#62

Post by oorza »

skywhopper wrote: post #50
_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…

Sure. It's also fair for her to challenge this clause given that the revelation of her win would probably completely destroy her existing relationships. It's fun to dream about winning hundreds of millions of dollars, but I'm glad this woman is taking the likely consequences of the win seriously and doing what she can to protect herself. Ultimately, state sponsored lotteries like this are a bad thing for everyone: th…

Why are they a bad thing for everyone? Obviously the players are almost universally worse off for playing, but don't they generate tax revenue and funnel money into places like schools?

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

#63

Post by baddox »

kodablah wrote: post #51
wgerard wrote: post #6

I hope she wins. There's a pretty funny (or sad, I suppose) reddit comment about winning the lottery that seems pretty true: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_... Winning the lottery (publicly, at least) seems to be a real monkey's paw wish.

> I hope she wins I'm not sure I do. She opted into a transparent system and gets the down side that comes with it (or opts out). If this was thrust upon her, I might feel different. I fear the precedent this would set for redacting names from Forbes lists and the like. It's one of those unfortunate occurrences where openness and privacy are in conflict and when it's government actions like this, arresting someone, a…

I don’t see the value in sticking to this legal technicality. She could have accepted the ticket using an anonymous trust, but since she signed it with her own name instead, she’s not allowed to change it. Since anonymous trusts are already legal there, there’s no threat of “losing openness.”

I mean come on, that’s such a petty technicality for such a massive life event. Just let her set up the anonymous trust and move the ticket to it.

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

#64

Post by baddox »

wahern wrote: post #61
wyldfire wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She can't do that either. But, why? Because she accidentally signed the ticket before realizing that it invalidated that option? She holds the winning ticket, just let her redact her signature from it legitimately and claim her winnings.

The question is whether the law establishing the lottery permits that, and if so what clear limits the court can put into place so that the agency operating the lottery doesn't have to contend with too many complex scenarios that could ultimately result. Money attracts litigation, especially when the rules aren't crystal clear. It sucks for this woman, but technically she could always forgo the winnings altogether. N…

> The question is whether the law establishing the lottery permits that

But that’s shouldn’t be the question. The question should be whether that law is extremely dumb (obviously it is), and whether it threatens to place undeserved stress on an individual going through a major life event (it does).

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

#66

Post by wahern »

baddox wrote: post #63
kodablah wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope she wins I'm not sure I do. She opted into a transparent system and gets the down side that comes with it (or opts out). If this was thrust upon her, I might feel different. I fear the precedent this would set for redacting names from Forbes lists and the like. It's one of those unfortunate occurrences where openness and privacy are in conflict and when it's government actions like this, arresting someone, a…

I don’t see the value in sticking to this legal technicality. She could have accepted the ticket using an anonymous trust, but since she signed it with her own name instead, she’s not allowed to change it. Since anonymous trusts are already legal there, there’s no threat of “losing openness.” I mean come on, that’s such a petty technicality for such a massive life event. Just let her set up the anonymous trust and mo…

The problem is allowing people to challenge the process, ex post facto, by which a winner is established. You can't think of any reason why making it easier to challenge that process--to change the outcome--might be problematic for an agency tasked with giving away hundreds of millions of dollars? Finality is one of the primary functions of rules and laws--of justice--often more important than getting a "correct" outcome in any particular case, especially in cases such as this where the woman is free to return to the status quo ante by forgoing the winnings altogether.

And in as much as courts can make and change laws, they must do so on principle, almost always by applying or extending some pre-existing principle of law. It can be difficult to articulate a principle cabined to the particular facts of a single case. It's much easier for legislatures to do that--to craft a rule that literally recites the facts of this woman's case so that the exception only applies to her and to people facing her exact same circumstance.

Maybe the court can do that in this case. We just shouldn't make the mistake of thinking it's an easy case to resolve.

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

#68

Post by IntronExon »

giarc wrote: post #55
IntronExon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if people are suspicious? People believe in chem trails and all kinds of crap, no one has to take a publicity hit to calm them.

Because if people are suspicious they stop buying tickets.

Good, a tax on the uneducated, desperate, and mathematically illiterate is cruel and morally reprehensible to begin with. Propping it all up with publicity generated at the direct expense of the winners is pathetic.
Post reply on HN