By Montserrat Arque
Aug 24, 2023, 12:49 PM EDT
There are lottery winners who claim to have lived a true martyrdom after having obtained a million-dollar lottery prize, since according to state laws, there are places in the United States where the lucky ones must disclose their identity in order to collect their money.
It is true that one of the recommendations that lawyers and lottery experts make is that if you win an important prize, try to keep it a secret and discuss it with very few people, because if you make it public, you could be a victim of those who want to take advantage of your fortune.
And although it seems that it is practically impossible to collect the prize anonymously in some states of the United States, there may be options to do it and as an example, we have the case of a man from Massachusetts, who was able to get hold of $1 million obtained in the Mega Millions, without having to go public.
The lucky winner purchased the winning Mega Millions ticket at a gas station in Cohasset County, where he obtained said amount of money thanks to matching all 5 numbers on the white balls.
But what has attracted the most attention in this case is that this person took advantage of a legal loophole that exists regarding lottery prizes in Massachusetts, since although the state requires the identity of the winners to be revealed, he did not have to do so to collect Your prize.
How could he collect the prize anonymously?
It turns out that this man created a trust with the company Caitlin Snow Nominee Trust of Quincy, so its administrator, David Spillane, was the one who appeared on August 17 at the Lottery offices to claim the prize.
Josh King, who is a legal advisor specializing in lottery issues, said that in this case, the winner of the $1 million Mega Millions prize did the right thing.
“Set up an LLC or trust to create anonymity. The structure you need here will be determined by the law of the state in which the winner resides,” King said.
In addition, this lawyer stressed that there are several ways to maintain anonymity when claiming a lottery prize, the easiest way being to buy a ticket in states where winners are allowed to keep their identity secret.
But for King, the most important thing for a winner of a good lottery prize is to keep it a secret and not tell anyone about their good fortune. In the same way, once the prize has been collected, he recommends not doing things or making purchases that attract attention or arouse suspicion in others.
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