How would a
mega-lottery winner remain
anonymous?程阳: 美国的彩票业掠影
All but five states (DE - 德拉瓦,
KS - 堪萨斯, MD - 马里兰, ND - 北达科他, OH - 俄亥俄) have laws that require the
lottery to release the name and city of residence to anyone who
asks. Other states may offer to assist you in some way, including
such things as the creation of trusts. But generally, you will want
to hire an attorney to review the laws in your state to see what
options you might have.
Which states allow
lottery winners to remain anonymous?
Delaware, Kansas, Maryland,
North Dakota, and Ohio have laws in place that allows any lottery
winner to remain anonymous.
Additional states may allow a
trust to be set up and the lottery winnings received in the name of
the trust. Thus, you could remain anonymous.
Maryland laws allow lottery winners to remain
anonymous when collecting their prize, and the winners chose that
option in this case.
Winning tickets were also sold in Kansas and
Illinois. The Kansas ticketholder chose to keep his identity
secret. Most states don't allow that.
As Kansas law allows, the mystery winner chose to
enjoy the winnings privately, leaving lottery officials to
celebrate the auspicious occasion with horns, confetti, balloons,
cake and punch in the company of a carboard
cut-out.
Under Kansas law, lottery winners can choose not to
publicly reveal their identities. The winner has retained legal
counsel and financial advisers and "looks forward to retiring,"
Wilson said.
Kansas
law also allows lottery winners to remain anonymous, though lottery
winners in Illinois are
identified.
__________________________________________
Lottery policy has always been to release only the
name and city of residence of each winner to the news media. Since
the Lottery is a government agency and Lottery prizes are public
funds, it is our responsibility to inform all of our players just
like you, of Lottery winners and prizes. Therefore, we must require
jackpot winners to participate in a media event arranged by the
Lottery. We owe it to everyone to disclose the names of all winners
to protect the integrity of the Lottery.
Maryland Mega
Millions winners claim prize anonymously
Apr 10,
2012, 8:34 am
Three public
school employees nab share of record jackpot
The Maryland
Mega Millions lottery winners are three Maryland public school
employees, who split the world's biggest lottery jackpot with two
other winners from Kansas and Illinois.
The trio
claimed their share of the jackpot Monday at Maryland Lottery
headquarters.
Maryland
laws allow lottery winners to remain anonymous when collecting
their prize, and the winners chose that option in this
case.
Maryland
Lottery Director Stephen Martino said the employees will each
receive $34.997 million after taxes.They had purchased a total of
60 tickets at three different locations throughout the state, or a
total investment of $20 per person.
"It is the
first time that the three friends have pooled their money
together," Martino said.
The three
winners are a woman in her 20s, another in her 50s, and a man in
his 40s.One employee is an elementary school teacher, another is a
special education instructor and the third works in an
administrative role.Two have other part-time jobs.
The youngest
of the group held onto the tickets and checked them immediately
following the drawing."I had all 60 tickets spread across my
floor," she said."Once I realized one was a winner, I called my two
friends right away."
"That
evening, I forgot about the drawing and went to sleep," said one
winner."It was around 11:30 p.m., and my phone just kept ringing
and ringing.I finally decided to answer it, thinking something was
wrong."Once she picked up, the two other winners were on the phone
and said, "Get dressed. We're coming over right now."
After
discussing the win, the threesome came up with a plan."We made
copies of the ticket, and we each signed the copies," said one of
the women."At 1 a.m., I took the ticket and drove to my mother's
house to put it in her safe.I didn't even take time to pack any
clothes — I just drove."
When the
group arrived at lottery headquarters Monday, Martino said one of
the winners took a small white envelope of out of her purse that
contained the winning Mega Millions ticket. The winners had made
three copies of the ticket and each signed the copies, he
said.
The actual
ticket wasn't signed by all three winners until Monday at the
lottery's conference room table, Martino said. The ticket was then
handed over to lottery security and its authenticity was verified,
he said.
The winners'
future plans all include new homes.One also plans to take a
backpacking trip through Europe, while another will pay for his
daughter's college education, Martino said.A third winner will tour
Italy's wine country, he said.
"Most
importantly," one winner said, "we're going to be careful with how
the money is spent.I watched coverage of the jackpot win on
television all week, just so I could listen to the financial advice
the professionals were offering."
All three
have indicated they intend to remain employees within Maryland's
public school system.
"They were
modest, and humbled," said Martino. "These are precisely the people
you would want to see win the lottery."
A total of
three winning tickets were sold across the country for the $656
million March 30 Mega Millions drawing matching the winning numbers
2, 4, 23, 38, and 46, with Mega Ball number 23.
Speculation
about a Maryland ticket reached fever pitch last week when a
Maryland woman, Mirlande Wilson, 37, said she had the ticket, then
alternately claimed she had lost it and had hidden it inside the
McDonald's restaurant where she works.Her attorney, who admitted he
couldn't back up her story, said she wanted to be left
alone.
As many
suspected, the story was a hoax.Lord knows why people do these
things, but the woman fabricated the whole thing.
The
anonymous winners bought the winning ticket at a 7-Eleven store in
Milford Mill outside Baltimore.The retailer will receive a $100,000
agent bonus for selling the winning
ticket.Lottery officials
increased the final jackpot to $656 million after tallying sales
from the 44 lotteries that offer Mega Millions.The jackpot was the
biggest in Mega Millions history and the three winners — one in
Maryland, Illinois and Kansas — will each get more than $218
million before taxes.
Kansas'
winner also decided to remain anonymous.(See Kansas Mega Millions
winner claims jackpot anonymously, Lottery Post, Apr. 6,
2012.)
The Illinois
winner has yet to come forward to claim the prize.
Mega
Millions winners claim prizes, choose anonymity
By Marisol
Bello and Laura Petrecca, USA TODAY
The winners
of the record-breaking Mega Millions jackpot are turning up
one-by-one, but the guessing game over just who the new
multimillionaires are goes on.
The owners
of the ticket bought in Maryland came forward Monday and turned out
to be two public school teachers and an administrative employee.
The trio — a man in his 40s, a woman in her 20s and a woman in her
50s calling themselves "The Three Amigos" — chose to be
unidentified. They said they plan to keep working.
They were
photographed with their faces covered by a large check for $218.6
million, their portion of the $656 million jackpot. Their hands and
arms were covered by gloves and long sleeves.
"They were
modest and humbled," Maryland Lottery Director Stephen Martino said
Tuesday. "These are precisely the people you would want to see win
the lottery."
Winning
tickets were also sold in Kansas and Illinois. The Kansas
ticketholder chose to keep his identity secret. Most states don't
allow that.
In Illinois,
no one has claimed the prize. Illinois Lottery Superintendent
Michael Jones said identifying winners ensures the process is open
and shows winners are chosen randomly.
Staying
anonymous is smart, said Andrew Stoltmann, an attorney who has
worked with lottery winners. Those who don't "have to change your
phone number, maybe even get a new address, and get your team in
place and prepare for an all-out avalanche of long-lost relatives,
quote-unquote friends, charities and others beating down the door,"
he said.
A news
conference "is the worst thing people can do," Stoltmann said.
"It's one thing to have your name released, it's another to have a
press conference and have people see your face and hear you speak
and know exactly what you look like."
Even without
one, he said "it's almost impossible to be anonymous now once your
name is out there, given Facebook, Twitter, online photos and your
digital footprint."
Kansas Mega Millions winner chooses anonymity, cash
By BRAD COOPER
Updated: 2012-04-07T02:55:54Z
TOPEKA | --
The only thing anyone may ever know about the record jackpot
lottery winner in Kansas is that it’s a 6-foot tall shadowy figure
made of poster board sporting a smiley face.
That’s
because the winner’s name is: Anonymous.
Someone —
lottery officials aren’t releasing any information about gender,
age or hometown — claimed the $218.6 million Kansas Mega Millions
jackpot at 11:45 a.m. Friday.
As Kansas
law allows, the mystery winner chose to enjoy the winnings
privately, leaving lottery officials to celebrate the auspicious
occasion with horns, confetti, balloons, cake and punch in the
company of a carboard cut-out.
“They
obviously don’t need the publicity and they’re not used to the
publicity,” said Dennis Wilson, the Kansas Lottery’s executive
director. “They were still in awe they had won it. They’re like all
of us. They think about the possibility of winning, but they never
think that’s it’s going to happen to them.”
This much is
known. The winner is looking forward to retirement.
The ticket
was purchased at Casey’s General Store No. 2668 at 940 N. Main
Street in Ottawa, which has a population of barely more than 6,000.
The winner spent only $1 and let the computer pick a random
number.
After taxes,
he or she will take home $110.5 million — more than double the city
of Ottawa’s budget.
The Kansas
winner shared in a national $656 million Mega Millions jackpot that
culminated last Friday, when the lucky numbers were drawn. The
record amount set off a frenetic ticket buying spree
nationwide.
Kansas sold
$28.5 million worth of lottery tickets in March, a 52 percent spike
over March 2011, when there was only a measly $312 million Mega
Millions jackpot.
On Saturday,
lottery officials announced that winning Mega Millions tickets were
purchased in Illinois, Maryland and northeastern Kansas.
But the
Kansas winner didn’t check the numbers until Monday, when they
looked at the lottery’s web site.
“They
checked it over 10 times to make sure they were reading it right
and still had a hard time believing it,” Wilson said.
They called
the lottery office in Topeka at 8:30 Friday morning. About two
hours later, the winner arrived accompanied by a lawyer and two
financial advisers. The paperwork was completed before noon, and
the money will be transferred to the winner’s account
electronically.
Meanwhile,
the rural Illinois community of Red Bud is still waiting for the
mystery winner of its share of the Mega Millions jackpot to step
forward. And in Maryland, questions still surround a Baltimore
woman who claimed to have the other winning ticket, but then said
she couldn’t find it.
Back in
Kansas, the state lottery handed out even more money Friday, a
total of about $460,000 to 20 winners of other games.
But no one
was paying much attention to them.
One winning
couple quietly slipped into a conference room to claim a $100,000
instant-ticket prize. Security escorted the man and the woman out
with barely anyone noticing.
Not even the
cardboard cut-out with the smiley face.
________________________________________________
Kansas Mega
Millions winner claims jackpot anonymously
Apr 6, 2012,
6:04 pm
The holder
of one of three winning tickets in last week's record $656 million
Mega Millions drawing came forward Friday to claim a share, Kansas
Lottery officials announced Friday afternoon.
The winner —
a single ticket holder — has chosen to remain anonymous, state
lottery director Dennis Wilson said.
The
announcement was made at an afternoon press conference at state
lottery headquarters in Topeka.
Under Kansas
law, lottery winners can choose not to publicly reveal their
identities. The winner has retained legal counsel and financial
advisers and "looks forward to retiring," Wilson said.
Kansas was
one of three states where three tickets matched the winning numbers
— 2, 4, 23, 38, and 46, with Mega Ball number 23 — amounting to an
equal share of roughly $218.6 million, before taxes, under the
annuity option. The Kansas lottery player purchased the winning
ticket at a Casey's convenience store in Ottawa.
The winner
has chosen to take a one-time lump-sum payment of about $157
million before taxes.
"It'll take
a few days for us to transfer the money to their account. It was a
single ticket holder — one person claimed the ticket," Wilson
said.
"They were
still just in awe that they had won it," Wilson said of the winner,
who didn't know the ticket was a winner until Monday.
"They
checked it over 10 times ... and still had a hard time believing
it," Wilson said.
As for
choosing to remain anonymous, Wilson said the winner obviously
doesn't want the publicity."We all have to understand that these
kind of winners need time to digest. They were still in awe that
they had won it," Wilson said.
"They're
like all of us. They think about the possibility of winning but
they never think that it would hapen to them — but it did. It
proves real people really win — and you could be next.
Two other
winning tickets were purchased in Maryland and Illinois.
The Kansas
winner is the first to officially come forward, just a week after
the winning numbers were picked.
Meanwhile,
Maryland lottery officials have been responding to a flurry of
questions from the media this week after a Baltimore-area woman
told the New York Post that she had one of the winning tickets.
However, in a bizarre twist of the story, Mirlande Wilson, a
37-year-old single mother of seven who works at McDonald's, told
the Post on Friday that she isn't sure where she last had the
ticket.
"I'm still
looking for it. I haven't even looked in my uniform pants yet," the
Post quoted Wilson as saying. "I'm still looking everywhere to find
it, in my purse, everywhere."
The state's
lottery director said Thursday he hasn't seen the ticket, but he
also says no one else has come forward saying he has it.
Carole
Everett, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Lottery, said Tuesday she
doesn't "put much stock in that story."
"She claims
she won," Everett said. "She can't produce a ticket. ... In our
opinion, until they walk in that door, hold that ticket, produce
valid identification and our security people can process and
validate it, it doesn't matter."
If Wilson is
determined to be a winner, a showdown could be brewing with her
McDonald's co-workers. They are demanding a share because they say
they pooled their money to buy several tickets. Wilson has said the
ticket she bought was separate from that.
Winning Mega
Millions lottery tickets sold in Maryland, Kansas and
Illinois
POST WIRE
SERVICES
Last
Updated: 6:48 PM, March 31, 2012
Posted: 1:18
AM, March 31, 2012
Winning
tickets in the $640 million Mega Millions lottery were sold in
Maryland, Illinois and Kansas, lottery officials confirmed
Saturday.
One lucky
ticket was bought at a 7-Eleven store in Milford Mill, about 11
miles (18 kilometers) outside Baltimore at 7.15pm local time Friday
and was a single quick pick ticket, FOX News Channel
reported.
The lucky
customer bought just one ticket and did not purchase anything
else.
Maryland
lottery director Stephen Martino told FOX that he was looking
forward to meeting the winner and said that the $640 million
jackpot figure was just a projection and could end up even
higher.
"This is
truly remarkable and historic," Maryland Lottery Director Stephen
Martino said in a statement. "We can't wait to greet the winner of
this world-record setting jackpot."
Today
television cameras were descending on the 7-Eleven in Baltimore
County where the state’s winning ticket was purchased. The harried
manager could only repeatedly say “No interviews” to the reporters
pressing for details, and customers pushed through the media crush
for their morning coffee.
Maryland
does not require lottery winners to be identified; the Mega
Millions winner can claim the prize anonymously. The store will
receive a $100,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket, which was
purchased Friday night.
Another
winning ticket was sold in the city of Red Bud, in southern
Illinois, near St. Louis.
"And we have
a winner!!" the Illinois Lottery tweeted Saturday. "A Grand Prize
#MegaMillions ticket was sold at Red Bud Motomart 900 S Main St,
Red Bud! Two other winners in KS & MD."
“This is
very exciting, people are extremely happy, and of course everybody
wants to know who it is,” Denise Metzger, manager of the Motomart
where the winning ticket was sold, said Saturday morning.
“Hopefully I sold that ticket to someone who comes in every single
morning.”
The Illinois
winner used a quick pick to select the numbers, according to Mike
Lang, spokesman for the Illinois Lottery.
The third
winning ticket was purchased in northeast Kansas, but no other
information would be released by the Kansas Lottery until the
winner comes forward, spokeswoman Cara S. Sloan-Ramos said in an
email.
No winner
had contacted the agency by Saturday morning, Kansas Lottery
Director Dennis Wilson said. “We sure want to meet the winner, but
we want to tell them, sign the back of the ticket and secure it,”
he said.
Kansas law also allows lottery winners to remain
anonymous, though lottery winners in Illinois are
identified.
Lang said
each winning ticket was expected to be worth more than $213 million
before taxes.
The winning
numbers in Friday night’s drawing were 02-04-23-38-46, and the Mega
Ball 23.
Carole
Everett, director of communications for the Maryland Lottery, said
the last time a ticket from the state won a major national jackpot
was 2008 when a ticket sold for $24 million.
“We’re
thrilled,” she said. “We’re due and excited.”
The
estimated jackpot dwarfs the previous $390 million record, which
was split in 2007 by two winners who bought tickets in Georgia and
New Jersey.
Americans
spent nearly $1.5 billion for a chance to hit the jackpot, which
amounts to a $462 million lump sum and around $347 million after
federal tax withholding. With the jackpot odds at 1 in 176 million,
it would cost $176 million to buy up every combination. Under that
scenario, the strategy would win $171 million less if your state
also withholds taxes.
From coast
to coast, people stood in line at retail stores Friday for one last
chance at striking it rich.
Maribeth
Ptak, 31, of Milwaukee, only buys Mega Millions when the jackpot is
really big and she bought one on Friday at a Milwaukee grocery
store. She said she’d use the money to pay off bills, including
school loans, and then she’d donate a good portion to
charity.
“I know the
odds are really not in my favor, but why not,” she said.
Sawnya
Castro, 31, of Dallas, bought $50 worth of tickets at a 7-Eleven.
She figured she’d use the money to create a rescue society for
Great Danes, fix up her grandmother’s house, and perhaps even buy a
bigger one for herself.
“Not too big
— I don’t want that. Too much house to keep with,” she
said.
Willie
Richards, who works for the U.S. Marshals Service at a federal
courthouse in Atlanta, figured if there ever was a time to confront
astronomical odds, it was when $640 million was at stake. He bought
five tickets.
“When it
gets as big as it is now, you’d be nuts not to play,” he said. “You
have to take a chance on Lady Luck.”
A New York
lottery spokeswoman was not able to say immediately after the 11
p.m drawing if there were any Empire State had any
winners.
There were
no lucky tickets sold in New Jersey, a lottery spokeswoman
confirmed.
The Garden
State did have five $250,000 winners.
A California
lottery spokesman said the Golden State had 29 players who matched
five of the six numbers.
Before the
epic drawing, New Yorkers lined up yesterday to buy tickets at
newsstands and lottery stores across the city. and the lines beefed
up once office workers stepped out for their lunch
breaks.
Bus driver
Rocco Fortunato stood outside a lotto store at the Port Authority
and said he was buying a second batch of tickets.
“Fifty of us
pooled tickets at $5 each,” he said of his co-workers at New Jersey
Transit.
Mayor
Bloomberg yesterday said he wasn’t likely to join the hordes
swamping lottery sellers in hopes of snagging a winning
ticket.
Then again,
why would he care about millions when he’s worth $22
billion?
“The chances
of me getting hit by lighting are greater than [winning],”
Bloomberg chuckled on his weekly WOR radio show.
The
practical-minded mayor said he isn’t much of a fan of gambling of
any sort.
“My view on
gambling is, if you want to do it understand that legally the state
is going to take 15 percent every time you roll the dice, ask for
another card at a blackjack hand, buy a lottery ticket.”
Americans
were expected to have spent $1.46 billion on Mega Millions tickets
by yesterday.
Among those
hopefuls was lottery louse Americo Lopes.
The New
Jersey hardhat — who was recently forced to pay five former
co-workers their fair share of a $24 million jackpot after he tried
to keep an office jackpot for himsef — thought he’d try his sorry
luck by buying $6 worth of tickets for last night’s
drawing.
“He was here
[yesterday] morning” buying tickets, said a clerk at the Maggie
Mart in Elizabeth, NJ, where Lopes bought the winning $24 million
ticket he tried to claim for himself.
He could use
the dough.
Lopes had
planned to buy a $1.45 million house in Boonton, NJ. and is now in
a legal battle over allegedly pulling out of a contract to purchase
the home.