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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

#91

Post by [deleted] »

baddox wrote: post #64
wahern wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

[deleted]

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

#92

Post by cestith »

IncRnd wrote: post #46
brk wrote: post #32

Given the size of the prize involved, it seems like she could have had a duplicate "winning ticket" made, sans signature on the back. This would have had to have been done before all the publicity about the signed ticket though. Even with watermarks, etc., the cost to manufacture an exact replica ticket couldn't be more than a few thousand dollars. Even if it were $100K to buy some specialized equipment, it would sti…

Manufacturing a false winning ticket would be a sure route not to get paid.

More to the point, it would be an excellent way to earn about a dime per hour the next dozen years or so, but with housing and food provided.

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

#95

Post by _red »

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 agree she opted in.

However, for your "Forbes" example the law makes a distinction between a public person and a private person.

Many many "private" people successfully sue Forbes to get off their annual "kidnap and ransom" list. The key to being declared a private person is never making public comments or speeches, etc.

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

#96

Post by giarc »

giarc wrote: post #81
joezydeco wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are cheated out of their winning each year by sales clerks that check the ticket, tell the buyer "nope, it's a loser", then pull the ticket out of the trash once the buyer has left. Signing the back upon purchase is a strong defense against this fraud. So it's not as black-and-white as it seems.

I can only talk about Canada, but in both Ontario and western Canada they scan your ticket and an audible sound is made if you are a winner (or loser). For both winners and non-winners, a receipt prints out and the clerk gives you both. Additionally there is a self scan kiosk where you can check your ticket. And there's always publicly listed winning numbers.

However, I will add that often a clerk won't scan your ticket if it's not signed. Therefore, if you want to check your numbers without signing the ticket, your options are self scan, their official app, online numbers, newspapers etc. Lots of options.

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

#97

Post by bonestamp2 »

brk wrote: post #32

Given the size of the prize involved, it seems like she could have had a duplicate "winning ticket" made, sans signature on the back. This would have had to have been done before all the publicity about the signed ticket though. Even with watermarks, etc., the cost to manufacture an exact replica ticket couldn't be more than a few thousand dollars. Even if it were $100K to buy some specialized equipment, it would sti…

Too risky. Surely they have unrevealed security measures to detect fraudulent tickets.

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

#98

Post by excalibur »

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…

> I'm rich (not $560M, but some)

In that case, I should tell you about my dynamite idea for a startup. It's called... umm..... Uberbookchain.

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

#99

Post by apaprocki »

kodablah wrote: post #73
baddox wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't really appreciate skirting "technicalities", especially in a precedent-setting legal decision. If the law is wrong (or even if the spirit/intent of the law does not apply here), she should win and the law should change or be struck down. I wouldn't mind if the judge decided "it's illegal to make someone who signed a lottery ticket with their real name not change to a trust and keep their name hidden." But I w…

If you read any legal opinions in visible cases they are never just the judge feeling or not feeling sorry for the plaintiff (or defendant) and are deeply steeped in the law as written as well as precedent before even approaching making new precedent. Maybe a judge could comment but I’d venture they would almost avoid territory that would be ripe for appeal as much as possible.

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

#100

Post by aje403 »

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.

It's really like some kind of kafkaesque greek irony or bad horror movie. Most of these people probably wish they threw away the ticket.
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