Winners' identities cloaked by legal entity
By Todd Northrop
It took some time, but the winners of an $83 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot have stepped up and claimed their prize — using a legal framework to avoid revealing their identities.
In November, the Mega Millions lottery announced that a winning ticket had been bought from Georgia. To be exact, the ticket was purchased from the White Water Chevron at 334 Cobb Parkway in Marietta.
Two months later, the winners have come forward and claimed their prize.
But who are they?
The state lottery agency Thursday said "members of ADirectConnection LLC" had won the the Nov. 18 Mega Millions drawing.
"If individuals decide to play in a group, prizes may be claimed by a single legal entity, such as a corporation, partnership or trust. Often times, winners consult with attorneys, accountants and financial advisors to decide what option is best for them," said Tandi Reddick, spokeswoman for the Georgia lottery.
It's not uncommon for winners to wait to claim their prize.
A 64-year-old woman from Dallas claimed her $7.5 million lottery prize in October three months after she knew she was a winner because she wanted time to plan.
For the $83 million prize, the agency had put the word out a few days after the drawing that no one had claimed the prize.
The business was formed 10 days after the drawing, according to state records. It is registered to a Sugarloaf Parkway address in Duluth that matches a psychiatrist's office.
The winners chose to receive the lump-sum cash option, which netted $50,826,699 before taxes. The cash option gives the winners the entire cash amount of the jackpot up-front, rather than accruing interest and doling out payments over 29 years that would deliver millions of dollars more, albeit over a long stretch of time.
The winning numbers were 31, 32, 49, 55, and 58, with Mega Ball number 15. The store that sold the lucky ticket was White Water Chevron at 334 Cobb Parkway S. in Marietta.
(Click to display full-size in gallery)
Maybe Legal Minds can Help Other People in Other States Claim Their Jackpots Anonymously.
Seems they went threw some searching to find out who it was by letting everyone know where it is .lol
I always wondered why the lotteries don't suggest that winners verify they have the winning ticket. This would prevent a search for the winner that usually happens when a few weeks go by without the jackpot being claimed and give the winner the time necessary to do their thing before validating the ticket.
Each state lottery has their own rules which can't be changed by the rules in other states.
I would agree on theory. Technically since its a MULTI STATE game its actually feasible for the Mega Million to change rules and make it that the participating states agree to anonymity or full disclosure. I tend to find transparency to be key amongst adults and systems.
After Georgia lottery winner Craigory Burch, Jr. was murdered in 2016 for his winnings of $434,000, you would think that the media would have stepped back a little. It wasn't necessary to identify the Duluth address of the LLC.
Players in the South can always buy tickets in South Carolina if they would like to remain anonymous. You can play up to 20 consecutive draws.
I think that if a state has a law that says lottery winners can not remain anonymous to claim prizes they should not be able to make LLCs to claim the prize and skirt the law.
Smart move.
How does the process of verifying and remaining anonymous work? Do you walk into lottery headquarters, ask to verify the ticket, refuse your name, take back the ticket and leave?
In California as soon as there is a major win, lottery officials seize surveillance footage from the store where the ticket was purchased. In 2012, California lottery released the photo of a couple that they thought had won a $52 million jackpot a month earlier, because Bladimir and Marita Agnite of Fremont had kept trying to self-verify the ticket at several stores and couldn't figure out that it was a winner and that they had to go to a lottery office. California also released video of a guy purchasing a $1 million ticket with only a day left to claim his prize. They found him but unfortunately he had lost his ticket.
I didn't know that the jackpot was revised upward.
congrats to the winner that is nice retirement sent from heaven
Hire a lawyer and have them call the lottery to verify their client has the winning ticket and the ticket will be validated when the winner has their affairs in order. You're over-thinking verifying a jackpot winning ticket when it's just simply helping a jackpot winner.
Currently the jackpot prize is distributed by the state selling the winning ticket so even though it's multi-state, the state lottery rules apply.
"its actually feasible for the Mega Million to change rules"
Of course it is. They came up with an initial set of rules and they've been changed several times, but those rules are mostly about the nature of the game itself and leave other things to the individual states. There's little reason that any state should care about how another state administers things, but they certainly wouldn't want other states to control how they do things. I think that makes the chances of a rule change about anonymity awfully close to zero.
"How does the process of verifying and remaining anonymous work?"
You've seen the self-service scanners that tell you if your ticket is a winner? There's absolutely no technical reason that they can't report a ticket as a winner whether it won the last prize or the jackpot. That wouldn't prove to the state that you know you've got the winner and will be filing a claim in the future, but it would let the state know that the ticket isn't already lost or laying unchecked in a junk drawer. As stack says, you could also call them and just give them some of the other info from the ticket to confirm that it matches. If I won I wouldn't want the lottery to release any video surveillance because they thought the winner might not know they've got the ticket. If I win the lottery will definitely be hearing from a lawyer for multiple reasons long before they actually see the ticket.