Have a plan BEFORE you turn in the ticket. You move to another state immediately after cashing in and change your name. Rinse and repeat as often as necessary. Then move to where wealthy people live so you blend in. Or live in a sparse Bohemian style in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
BipolarBob wrote: “Have a plan BEFORE you turn in the ticket.”
Some states offer a class in ‘what to do now that you’ve won’.
Rush, back in the mid-90s, hosted several callers who had won the lottery. One recounted that his state told him not to go home. Hire someone to fetch any pets or keepsakes. He was told that by the time he got home there would be fifty people waiting in his front yard wanting to sell him something or looking for a handout.
He told about receiving multiple calls along the lines of ‘You probably don’t remember me but my cousin was in your ninth grade class. She’s been in a bad car wreck and the hospital won’t treat her until we give them $20000. Can you wire us the money now’.
He also said the post office asked if he could pick up his mail in person because they were getting a couple of duffle bags of solicitations for him every day.