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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

#161

Post by thaumasiotes »

eesmith wrote: post #57
bachmeier wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because, and I'll quote from article, "she signed her name on the back of the ticket shortly after winning, and altering the signature would nullify the ticket." That is, she could have formed an anonymous trust, but now it's too late.

This is completely unrelated to the question you're supposedly responding to. Some people are advancing the argument that it serves an important societal interest to publish this woman's name. Specifically, it builds trust in the lottery by publicizing that somebody won.

bachmeier is pointing out that you could accomplish this equally well by making up a name and publishing it as the lottery winner. The fact that somebody signed a ticket has no bearing on that.

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

#162

Post by kodablah »

ABCLAW wrote: post #155
kodablah wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Real life also has preferences and bias. This is why our judges mostly do not get to tinker with the rules.

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

#163

Post by IncRnd »

make3 wrote: post #54
Pharylon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of it is to avoid fraud.

there are plenty of ways to avoid fraud without having to recall the identity to the public, the main being state auditing of all lotteries, which should probably happen anyways

A third party should audit the lottery, not the state. If the payouts are from a purchased annuity, this type of audit is almost certainly required - not the state auditing itself but a 3rd party auditor.

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

#164

Post by giarc »

newbuser wrote: post #141
giarc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone can assault you and steal your wallet. Does this prevent you from carrying a wallet?

Do you carry millions in cash around in your wallet?

I wouldn't walk around with a million dollar ticket in my pocket, nor tell people. You're really reaching here.

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

#165

Post by thaumasiotes »

drcode wrote: post #144
oldcynic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is simply not true. Any UK winner can opt for anonymity when collecting their prize. The National Lottery give financial and legal advice regardless of your choice. Only around 20% opt for publicity.

A cynic would say "only 20% are known for sure to not be fake identities of lottery administrators"

The fact that there's a person with a different name than a lottery administrator shouldn't give you any additional confidence that that person isn't just a fake identity of the lottery administrator. Based on the stated facts, 0% are known for sure not to be fake identities of lottery administrators.

For example, family members of giveaway administrators are generally prohibited from winning, but how are you supposed to know who they are?

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

#166

Post by baddox »

gameshot911 wrote: post #130
baddox wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

There are good reasons for forcing winners to be publicly named. One of which is that it helps the integrity of the game - harder for the lottery organizer to just not pay out, or to cheat and pay it to their lackeys every time.

I understand, but that’s not the real story here, because her lottery allows anonymous trusts to accept winnings.

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

#167

Post by snoman »

jvagner wrote: post #85
nebulous1 wrote: post #21

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 th…

Because the lottery commission isn't responsible for the legalities of the anonymous trust, state law is. They don't want to be involved in that, but they're willing to use an externally valid mechanism, which they can't influence. Personally, there was a way to stay anonymous, and she goofed it up. No sense in changing the system for someone who can't help themselves. The lottery commission shouldn't be allowed to h…

I think nebulous1 is is pointing out that it's one thing to say "We're just following the letter of the law to the best of our ability, because we want to be 100% above board." It's another thing to say "We're fighting in the interest of openness."

That is to say: don't pretend to be some white knight for principles when you're actually just trying to CYA. Be honest.

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

#168

Post by IncRnd »

gamblor956 wrote: post #156
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.

Actually, the second part is very legal and is done all the time. In fact, people who donate large sums to University and other charitable causes do just that, receiving payments in return.

FYI, when politicians say they donated XYZ to their personal foundation or trust, this is many times what has happened.

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

#169

Post by sp332 »

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 think it was that transparent. She followed instructions that she was given by the commission and the result was not what she wanted. She could have put the name of the trust on the ticket instead of her own name, but she was given bad advice by the official website.

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

#170

Post by prostoalex »

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…

> If this was thrust upon her, I might feel different.

While it’s not thrust upon her in the sense that someone held a gun to her head to force a ticket purchase, her options are severely limited due to state’s monopoly on lottery business. If some entity (including another state) came up with an anonymous lottery system to serve such market, most likely she would not be able to legally purchase such tickets in her home state.

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