Do you know who won the lottery? Without changes in behavior and without being told, would you know if your neighbor won the lottery? Or your mother? Or your boss? Please describe how you’d know this information. Do you actively solicit this information, such as regularly reading a lottery website or a lottery section of your local periodical?
There are winners in every state every week (maybe not literally, but there are plenty). I have no idea who wins. I really don’t care. If my neighbor or mother or boss won the lottery, I’d have no idea unless they started living very differently causing me to enquire.
I’m asking because I see over and over and over references to people wanting to win the lotter anonymously and having friends and relatives crawl out of the woodwork. I’m not convinced that this would be the case.
I don’t make it a habit to find out who did or did not win the lottery, but there are two inherent truths about a secret:
- If more than one person knows, it’s not a secret
- People always tell
Given those two, it would not be possible that you could keep that information quiet, and there is a long history of lottery winners having family and friend problems when they win. You would quickly find out if your friend from work or a family member won the lottery whether he wanted you to or not. What you do with that knowledge is your business, but historically it’s been disastrous to big winners.
My brother won the first prize in Lotto many years ago. He told only his immediate family. The result was precisely as **Airman Doors **notes: the secret got out almost straight away (not via me I hasten to add).
I wouldn’t. But I don’t play the lottery so it’s not the kind of thing I pay attention to. Lottery information is all public so I imagine if I was involved in it, I’d keep myself informed on things like how big the current megaprize is and the winners being announced.
Somebody a few counties away won the Powerball recently. I don’t recall their names (since I have no intention of writing to ask them for a handout), but every news station in the state had to show them sitting at lottery headquarters. I’d say “those poor people,” but I really don’t feel sorry for them :D. They seemed like a nice couple and wanted to use the money to retire a few years early and help out their family members.
They usually only put the winners on the news when the jackpot is a big one, though.
I do not. But not too many years ago someone won after buying a ticket from a local store where I buy my lottery tickets and before the name was announced, people were calling to see if I had won.
I guess what I’m saying is, no, not when it is far away, but when it is local it hits the local news. In this case, before the name was announced, the radio said that someone had won from a local Rutters. I don’t know if the name was later announced, as I spend very little time listening to the radio.
Not always. Some states require that the information be public, no doubt the avoid any appearance of insider fraud, but others allow the information to be kept secret. The first thing that a lot of people in the secret states do is set up a trust. If they can keep the secret, no one should know.
If my neighbors won the lottery I would imagine that this info would be in the community newsletter. I would also imagine that the 7-11 up the street would be advertising the fact that they sold a winning ticket (presuming that my neighbor bought their ticket from there).
Sometimes they show people on the news accepting a big novelty cheque. Other times, there’s an interesting story, like a work lottery pool fighting over who is eligible or the (Canadian) guy who waited until the very last possible day to claim his prize so that he could try to stiff his ex-wife.
Yeah, Airman has it right (and posted as much in the previous thread).
The poll is misleading. I don’t know who won the lottery, but that’s almost certainly because it was a stranger. If someone I knew won the lottery, I’d be very surprised if I didn’t find out almost immediately.
I voted no. I only know of 1 recent winner, and that was because his story was featured on the lottery website when I was checking to see what the jackpot was. He lives a few towns over from me, and I have never met him, nor do I have any expectations of doing so even though I’m his long-lost dear older sister :D.
I don’t know who won the lottery but that’s because no one I know has won.
Secrets travel fast and here in Ontario you must sign a release allowing your name to be published before they give you the cheque. Someone is going to stumble across it and they will talk.
The guy hogarth is talking about was really obnoxious actually. You have a year to collect your winnings here. He figured out he’d won almost right away, put the ticket in a safe deposit box and then proceeded to divorce his wife. Talk about hiding assets!
There was an older couple in one of the eastern provinces who recently made a public statement that they’d given away all the money. The requests from friends, neighbors and strangers were driving them insane.