Yeah, yeah, yeah, another Lottery question.
But this question has popped into my head a few times over the years and I never got around to asking it. Now that I’m looking at a front page of IMHO that has several Lottery themed questions, my old question has come to mind so I figure I might as well ask it before I forget again.
I don’t expect to ever win the Lottery, but I enjoy having sensible well plotted fantasies about it. One major concern in my Lottery fantasies is that my name not be plastered all over the news. Sure, I personally can’t recall the name of any big lotto winner, but, of course, I never knew any of them personally. If I had known them personally I would have recognized and remembered them from the public announcement or I’d have been told about it by a common friend.
Now, I don’t need an obscene amount of money by Bel Air standards but I wouldn’t mind having an obscene amount of money by West Philadelphia standards- just enough to say “Yo, Homes, smell ya later”.
What do you think is the most amount of money I could win from the Lottery without drawing enough attention to have my name mentioned in the media?
To not have it come up on the first couple pages of results of a Google search of my name?
(Perhaps this would be a smaller sum that the answer to the question above?)
I’d say more. A standard win - say $15-$75MM - tends to draw almost no media attention these days. Yes, your name would likely be published, but not in any big way.
In reality, it’s only the monster winners who draw a lot of attention. Whoever has the winning ticket this time is getting a LOT of ink and pixels in a hurry. So step #1 is a set of bodyguards, at least for the immediate future.
Actually it looks like it’s by state. According to what I’ve seen only Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and South Carolina allow lottery winners to remain anonymous. I know here in Oregon they make that info public record as a sort of transparency. So people know actual people are winning.
With record levels like this I’m betting your name will get out no matter where you live; especially if it comes down to a solo winner. Be one of like 5 winners and you may be able to avoid the press digging you out of whatever hole you have dived into.
Depends who you are and where you are. Here in RI there’s no way to keep it secret, once word gets out that someone in our state won it, even if it could legally be kept anonymous (I don’t think it can) someone will find out and blab.
I’ll take the liberty to quibble with this. I would say that if the winner is on Facebook, step #1 would be to lock their profile down tight, before they claim the prize. Step #2 might be to get a second phone number, depending on how well-known their info is. Then it’s time for the bodyguards.
The sister-in-law of a good friend won $250,000 in an Ontario lottery. (My friend claims she is still a net loser in lotteries.) She was given the option of keeping her name secret and chose it. Fifteen minutes later she got her first charity solicitation. Of course a 1/4 million is not enough to make the papers, but I would guess that anonymity is not in the cards.
One small step to reduce some of the random hassles is to form a corporation and have the corporation claim the prize. Only a few states allow this, however.
Sure, anyone with brains can look up the corporation and find out who owns it, etc., but at least you are excluding the less intelligent who see your name and address on a list and decide to annoy you for A Very Good Reason.