Posted on 03/25/2015 3:00:09 PM PDT by NRx
RALEIGH, N.C. — If you are lucky enough to win the lottery here, there is one thing you are virtually certain to lose: your privacy.
Like most of the 44 states with lotteries, North Carolina considers the identities of winners of large prizes to be a matter of public record. But this year, in which winners already have come forward more than 40 times to claim awards that the state later publicized, lawmakers have considered whether the winners should be allowed to collect their money without having their names disclosed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
All of which aside, the lottery is a tax on the mathematically challenged.
Many of whom are the family and relatives of the "winners."
My neighbor in Texas won a large lotto. He never returned to his home. Sold it and moved on.
It would be very limited anonymity anyway. Taxes, divorces, child support, ineligible players claiming wins (such as the lottery security guys from Iowa and Texas). Names might be kept off the most open of public records, but bragging, leaks and blogs are guaranteed to make ‘anonymity’ pointless.
Good points, except for the last one. I look at the lottery as "negative insurance". It's an unlikely payoff, but unlike insurance, you're happy if you "win." There's an economic way of looking at it in terms of wealth utility functions, known as skew preference (3rd moment of the probability distribution). If you really, really like the outcome, it seems worthwhile to invest/gamble, even if winning is very improbable.
In the early years of the Texas lottery, a big winner either sued or threatened to sue to retain his/her anonymity. That caused the Texas lottery commission to allow winners to remain anomymous on request.
I would imagine other states would/could face the same and, if a winner requests to remain anonymous, they would allow it.
I haven’t had to worry about that yet.
If I were a lottery winner I’d prefer anonymity but how much do we trust the lottery a government entity? Would you trust the IRS to administer it fairly?
Form a blind trust when you win. You get total anonymity and you have a trusted person managing your money. Because if I won $300 million, I’d be crawled up in a bottle of Jack’s with a dozen women.
When I won $300 million awhile back, they let me put it in an anonymous trust.
That last post didn’t happen, but wouldn’t you like to be able to say that???
Are you serious?
Supposedly when state and provincial lotteries started, the governments figured people wouldn’t believe that the lottery actually paid money out to winners if their names weren’t a matter of public record.
I didn’t see your post before I posted. I don’t know if I’d be in a bottle, but there are no campaign limits on Texas state campaigns. If I won $300 million, I’d drop 8 figures on dumping Texas House Speaker Straus.......
Probably a smart move. I had a college professor who won $7 million back in the 80’s. He said it was a nightmare for most of a year before the crazy begging letters, endless phone calls and assorted nut jobs started to subside. But even years later he still got out of the blue solicitations.
Just like Dewhurst.
/johnny
It's an extremely unlikely payoff. Your chances of becoming U.S. President are better. Funny thing is, a lot of people I know who bet on the lottery and can't be swayed to stop doing so, are dead set against casino gambling. I don't play the lottery, but I do gamble at casinos even though the odds are slightly against me. I enjoy winning half the time (casino gets a slight advantage). The last dozen times at casinos I've come away with more money going home (and a few good jackpots). I would think people would get discouraged playing lotteries, baffles me why they continue to play without any substantial wins.
I don’t play the lottery. It’s a revenue scam. I prefer working for my income.
I spend less on a lottery ticket than I would for a cup of coffee at Starbucks and there is no burnt taste.
It’s a win, win for me.
Did strangers come looking for him at his old home or ask you where he moved to?
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