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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

#151

Post by ghaff »

kodablah wrote: post #118
baddox wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this should set a precedent, and I am quite confident that it wouldn’t cause any problems other than the lottery being upset about losing publicity.

I think that's reasonable and would not be surprised if the judge says that the harm placed on the individual by the state just for participating is too large, legally. But I would also not be surprised if public's right to know trumps all.

I'm not sure what the compelling public interest is in knowing the name of the person who won the lottery. I suppose there's some argument for transparency to better protect against, say, relatives of lottery officials regularly winning. But I presume there are other safeguards in place to check that things are run on the up and up.

The state gets their substantial cut--both through the lottery itself and through taxes--either way. Without having looked into the history of lottery practices, I'm pretty unconvinced that winners need to be outed to collect their winnings.

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

#152

Post by mcbits »

kale wrote: post #129
walshemj wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring political risk eg in 15 years that state government changes the rules and sequesters the money - this actually happened in the UK to the SERP pension I lost mine for a small uplift in the state pension when they changed the rules. You also ignoring the time value of money 100 million to day is worth more than 10 million for 10 years

Illinois has had difficulty recently paying lottery winnings to citizens. In 2015, 3900 winning tickets had delayed payouts [0]. Risk should always be factored into financial decisions, and risk of a lottery institution going insolvent is non-zero. [0] http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/27/news/illinois-lottery-state-...

They did pay, but yes, nothing is completely risk-free. The risk of a lottery winner losing their lump sum to mismanagement, fraud, etc. is still a lot higher than the risk of a state going belly-up, although maybe Illinois will be the one to change that.

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

#153

Post by pmarreck »

kbutler wrote: post #70
pmarreck wrote: post #42

Giving the winnings in a cryptocurrency would both preserve anonymity (pseudonymity?) and permit audit of the winnings.

And suddenly the principals of the lottery company start spending huge amounts of cash...

Which would also be visible on the blockchain. Depending on the cryptocurrency. Not too hard to sign an address to prove it's yours.

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

#154

Post by kodablah »

jsgo wrote: post #145
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…

re: redacting names from Forbes lists and the like - and if it did? What is the point of said lists beyond a congratulatory pat on the back for those who want it? In this particular case, there is precedence where winning has been detrimental to the winners specifically for the sake of winning (scams, murders, etc.). I think that substantially outweighs the "need" for transparency of the lottery system to seem above…

This assumes you trust your government to actually award it to someone and you trust the ones running the lottery that who it was awarded to happened actually by chance. Because you'll never be able to investigate either without making the information available to someone outside the government (and even then, do you trust an "independent" auditor?). Transparency in government actions has value sometimes, even at the detriment of individuals. But it's not at all costs and I do agree a balance could be found between the public's right to know and scrutinize and a person's right to privacy.

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

#155

Post by ABCLAW »

kodablah wrote: post #116
ABCLAW wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Equitable relief is precedent-setting, and derives from the basis of "whoa, our rules feel 'off', lets give this person a break". If you want the precedent to be narrowly used, you just write a ruling that makes it clear that the outcome is exceptionally fact specific.

We should ask our judges not to legislate from the bench by giving narrowly construed decisions contrary to the written law that apply to nobody else. Either every lottery winner in the state is legally right to remain anonymous and collect (be it via changing to a trust whilst remaining anonymous or however) or every one is not. This is not some extreme example and I can definitely see this coming up again.

>We should ask our judges not to legislate from the bench

Why not? This is a core facet of their job.

The tug of war in law between flexibility and certainty is nothing new.

In this case you've state the outcome should be either all entitled to anonymity or all restricted from anonymity. Why are those the only two options?

Say sociological research shows: 1) people conceal lottery earnings from spouses in the context of divorce with tremendous regularity, and 2) people who obtain lottery earnings are 10x more likely to be killed by distant, financially-at-risk relatives. Should a lottery winner with 3 violent felons with debts in his family be dealt with in the same manner as an upper middle class winner in the middle of a divorce?

This is why our judges get to tinker with our rules. Because real life has edge cases.

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

#156

Post by gamblor956 »

calvinbhai wrote: post #93

Would it be possible to take the winnings non anonymously and immediately donate 100% to a ‘charity/foundation’ (that funnels money back to her at constant rate)?

Yes to the first part, no to the second as that would be tax evasion. She could put it all into a grantor trust (an asset holding entity which is not a charity or a foundation) which pays her an allowance at a constant rate.

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

#157

Post by kodablah »

dnautics wrote: post #125
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…

Did the lottery ticket have an EULA on it giving all the conditions of the win? What was the mechanism in place making sure that the purchaser fully understood the provisions of the agreement prior to making the lottery purchase? Are you siding with the state on this merely because it's a state? Would you feel the same way if it were microsoft?

> Are you siding with the state on this merely because it's a state?

No, and I definitely don't side with the state because it was in the rules. To me, what's legal matters, not what you signed away. When I say "opt in" vs "opt out" I am talking about the known inherent risks of publicity, not about whether you can change the name you sign or other fine print. I am just conceding the argument for transparency has merit.

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

#158

Post by thaumasiotes »

oorza wrote: post #62
skywhopper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Lotteries are often dedicated to funding schools. But the schools were going to be funded anyway. What ends up happening is the lottery pays for its own staff, the school budget stays the same, and money that would have gone to schools goes elsewhere in the government budget. In this stylized example, is that extra money in the non-school budget funded by surplus from the lottery?

What would it mean for the lottery to funnel money specifically into schools?

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

#159

Post by joering2 »

joezydeco wrote: post #75
throw7 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the moral is... do not talk/sign/call/anything, walk, no run, to a good lawyer well versed in the area of: "I've just won the lottery, please help."

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.

You have anything to back that story up? Even an online article?

Most lottery systems around the world will buzz a "winner" or "not a winner" sound and some flashy lights when you bring the ticket to a clerk. Try it in Germany, England and USA (places where I played lotto and witnessed it firsthand)

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

#160

Post by giarc »

newbuser wrote: post #137
giarc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No idea how the system works, but if the clerk is able to disable the scanner and manually press a hidden button that plays the audio of the losing sound, seems like a pretty easy system to break.

And print out an official lotto receipt on their official paper.... come on.
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