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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

#191

Post by slantyyz »

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".

>> it's also about avoiding fraud.

It can also prevent a spouse or common law partner from winning the lottery in secret and taking off with all the money. It's happened more than once in Ontario, Canada, with one story making the rounds right now.[1]

[1] https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/02/06/woman-sue...

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

#192

Post by mikestew »

coldtea wrote: post #109
kodablah wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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. That's orthogonal. What you propose translates to that while the law is not changed (which can take decades in some cases) we should let people suffer rather than "skip technicalities" when we can. How about sodomy laws (still present in some jurisdictions). Should they be i…

“She should win”, it is right there in the part you quoted.

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

#193

Post by shawabawa3 »

giarc wrote: post #160
newbuser wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who stays for their losing receipt?

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

#194

Post by jonbarker »

sigstoat wrote: post #180
soundwave106 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be helpful in this discussion is a report on lottery spending per capita, sorted by income level and other demographics. Currently I'm not finding any out there. I do see a study showing that the average amount spent per person in the US is around $200ish ( https://lendedu.com/blog/lottery-study-report/ ), which doesn't sound completely terrible. However, it is very probable that this number masks widespre…

> I do see a study showing that the average amount spent per person in the US is around $200ish ( https://lendedu.com/blog/lottery-study-report/ ), which doesn't sound completely terrible. i feel like that's pretty bad, next to an article like: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/01/why-half-of-americ...

Is that annual? If it is anything like any other vice, basically it follows the pareto principle, causing massive damage to a small subset of the population which does most of the overuse. "Don't bet the rent money" very much applies here.

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

#195

Post by icebraining »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #136

I think this is a good argument for restructuring the lottery. From what I gather, the big jackpots used to be smaller and the small wins used to be more frequent. They changed how it works because the larger the payouts of the big jackpot, the more of a ticket buying frenzy you have. Everyone actually wants to win. But not necessarily life changing amounts of money of this magnitude. We should go back to more small…

The Spanish Christmas Lottery (El Gordo de Navidad) has a curious system: rather than a different number per ticket, there are about 170 tickets with each number (it varies each year), and so the first prize is divided by them, which gives about 4M€ to each. But furthermore, each ticket is expensive (200€), so they sell tenths of each ticket individually.

These tickets are also usually distributed sequentially, not randomly, so you end up with cases like a single village this December in which 50 winning tickets (=200M€) were sold to hundreds of persons (as tenths).

Of course, it must be painful to live in the area and not have bought a ticket...

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

#197

Post by gumby »

There's an important reason to make these winners public: to prevent corruption. Otherwise it would be easier to bad actors to direct lottery "winnings" to their friends or as bribes (of course it can still happen: https://www.quora.com/Did-Whitey-Bulger-really-win-the-lotte...)

This is the same reason why arrest records are public everywhere in the US: secret arrests are dangerous.

Of course this default-public provides opportunity for other kinds of abuse as well, but, at least in the lottery case, it's by definition opt in.

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

#198

Post by ynniv »

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".

Someone defrauding the system would know it well enough to claim it under an anonymous trust. The winner unintentionally forfeited this right by signing her name on the ticket.

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

#199

Post by joezydeco »

joering2 wrote: post #159
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.

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)

Sure. Here's an example from just a month or two ago:

http://wfla.com/2017/12/12/gulfport-and-st-pete-store-clerks...

(and yes, a lot of systems now have self-service terminals that one can use to check your own ticket, and cashier terminals that make audio, but fraud will always find a way.)

Even an online article?

Were you looking for a paper copy? I don't have your mailing address.

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

#200

Post by _trampeltier »

I think it's a terrible thing to be fully named to the public. Some people say here, it would be necessary, so people could trust the lottery. BS. The winning could be faked also, so if you don't trust your lottery so don't play. On the other side .. if you win such amount of money, you will lose all your friends and family member anyway. Nobody can keep up with your new lifestyle. So you have to go to far away anyway. Bad luck or so ..

Somebody remember this .. Improbably Frequent Lottery Winners https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15262440

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