One Woman's Desire for Anonymity Has Caused a Problem with Her $560-Million Lottery Ticket

It’s the scenario everyone dreams of when they buy a lottery ticket at a convenience store or a supermarket – they check the results and find out that they’re a winner. Now, even winning a small amount is nice, but what people really want is a lifechanging amount of money.

One woman in New Hampshire got just that in January when she won the Powerball, which had a $559.7-million jackpot. You’d think that she would have raced to collect her winnings the moment she discovered she had the winning numbers, but this Jane Doe is concerned about her privacy.

The official Powerball rules provide two options when it comes to distributing winnings. If the winner signs the back of their ticket in their own name, then the winnings will go to them upon redemption of the ticket, but they can’t remain anonymous. When they receive their winnings, their name is released and anyone who wants to know could find out who won the money.

The other option is for the winner to put the name of a trust on the back of the ticket. They can then get their winnings through that trust and stay anonymous. Unfortunately for the Jane Doe who won this Powerball jackpot, she signed the back of her ticket with her own name shortly after finding out she had won, probably to prevent anyone else from cashing in the ticket if they got ahold of it.

After she signed the back of her ticket, the woman looked over the full rules for the lottery on its site and consulted with a lawyer. She has since hired Steve Gordon to represent her in the matter, and he says that she wants to stay anonymous because she’s an active member of her community who would rather not be known as someone who won such a large sum of money.

The woman’s legal team asked the lottery commission to allow her to use white-out to take her name off the back of the ticket, and then use the name of a trust, instead. The lottery commission responded by saying that using white-out constitutes an alteration of the winning ticket, and any alterations invalidate the ticket.

While using white-out to change the name seems like a simple request, it makes sense that the lottery commission would prohibit this, as anyone who stole or found a winning lottery ticket belonging to someone else could change the name on the back this way. At the same time, it’s natural for the winner to want her privacy instead of having the whole state know she has over half a billion dollars.

The county clerk set up an injunctive hearing for the situation, and the winner of the Powerball is expected to go to court on February 21. If the court doesn’t grant her request, then she’ll need to sacrifice her privacy to claim the money or she’ll be unable to receive it, which would essentially mean she’s giving up hundreds of millions.

Source: Business Insider