Mega Millions $ 1.6B winner in South Carolina may claim price anonymously
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By David K. Li
The lonely winner of Tuesday's Mega Millions drawing can never be known.
That's because the lucky player bought his life-ticket in South Carolina, one of a handful of states where winners have the ability to be anonymous.
Delaware, Kansas, Georgia, Texas, Maryland, North Dakota and Ohio are among other places where winners can fully laugh at the bank in full anonymity.
"I think it's a good idea to let people get that option," said Nelson Rose, Professor Emeritus at Whittier College Law School in California, specializing in gaming rules.
Rose noted that winning lottery players have a reasonable request to stay outside the spotlight.
"The reasons people will be anonymous is that they are otherwise flooded with requests for money," he told NBC News Wednesday. "Many winners need to move because there are just so many requests for money that come from, not just family and friends but everyone."
By mid-afternoon, the South Carolina winner had still not come forward. 19659007] The winning ticket was purchased at KC Mart # 7 in Simpsonville, South Carolina, just outside Greenville. He or she has 180 days to claim the $ 1,537 billion prize – and decide if they should be anonymous.
The winner had not stepped forward at the conclusion of the business Wednesday, a South Carolina writer said.
The question of allowing lottery lovers to remain nameless is an ongoing problem.
A Jane Doe in New Hampshire sued earlier this year against the granite state earlier this year, requiring her name to be kept under cover. In March, the court ruled in favor of the $ 560 million Powerball winner.
However, the state said that Jane's successful lawsuit only covered her. Marketing Manager for the New Hampshire Lottery Maura McCann said that the agency will continue to name the prize winner for a court saying something else.
"It complies with the integrity we have here at the New Hampshire Lottery," McCann said Wednesday. "We are a government entity. We are a transparent government agency. It is important for the public to know who wins a prize if it is for $ 500, $ 5000 or half million dollars."
The spokesman for the New York State Gaming Commission, spokesman Bad Maione, also said secret winners would hurt the confidence in lottery games.
"There are many skeptics, especially these days," he said. "Each state makes its own decision to publish, but this practice (with name winners) is accepted quite a lot throughout the industry."
Alex Traverso, former Deputy Assistant Director of the California Lottery, also said the credibility of the games hinged on total transparency.
"There are people who have talked about believing they can win – and if they do not see a winner (identified), they think there's something shadowy that's happening," said Traverso, now spokesman for the Bureau of Cannabis Control in California.
Rose said he would not be surprised if states – who manage lotteries like Mega Millions and Powerball individually – move a lot in one way or another to make rules evenly nationwide in the coming years.
He said almost all states once paid their big winners through annuities lasting 20 or 30 years. It was before the players – many of them older citizens – began to judge individual lottery commissions in the 1980s.
Now the lump sum is practically the only way the lottery winners choose to get paid.
"It's better to have These changes are made by individual state legislators instead of expensive matches in the courts," said Rose.
Anonymous or not, the South Carolina winner has the opportunity to take a cash sum of $ 904 million or an annuity, go away with an initial payment followed by annual deductions over 29 years.
