Lottery companies would rather you shout about your winnings
When you win the lottery your natural instinct is to keep yourself out of the limelight as you don’t want people to know that you are the person who has won all that money. You want to keep family and friends, strangers and thieves from knowing who you are and where you live.
It is a natural human instinct and one that many lottery winners have tried to do for as long ashere have been lotteres. But almost all lotteries requre a potential winner to at least pose for a picture witha large mock cheque with at aleast there first name and city of residence. And this is part of the contract you sign to enable you to get your money. But why do lotteries require this?
It all comes down to the fact that lotteres must be transparent in all ther activites including awarding prizes to players. They must be up front and open about winners of ther draws to prove to the public that real people win real prizes.
If pictures, names, and home towns of jackpot winners were never published then the gaming public could (as some players do) accuse that lottery of “awarding” prizes to fake people, usually lottery employees, and then keeping the lottery prize so the higher ups can get a share of the jackpot.
So, to prove to the gaming public and general public that the lottery is honest and transparent, they require winners’ pictures, names, and home towns so they can publish the information and show that real people play the lottery and real people win the lottery.
However, a lot of winners have contested this and have used every excuse possible to get out of being a publicized winner. But in reality, the only way a winner can be anonymous is there is a real threat of danger or death posed to a winner through publishing their ID, which can be verified by police to the lottery operator. It has to be legitimate and a real threat. You can’t say that Uncle Gary will call up from his drunken stupor and try to get his hands on your cash. But f you win the lottery and your ex spouse who has been violent towards you and a restraining order against them, then that might be taken into consideration.
Also some winners have go to court to try to stay anonymous. But again, unless the judge feels that there would be imminent and prensent danger if your identity were made public, the lottery’s rules are final and if you want your prize to have to abide the rules of winner publication. And going to court to try to access that anonymity is costly and will cut into your prize money deep.
The one thing that has changed in this issue over the last couple of years has been the wearing of masks during COVID. A player in some jurisdictions can say the due to COVID they need to wear a mask when out of the house and some lottery operators have allowed winners to have their pictures published of them wearing a surgical mask. This masking has allowed some winners to at least keep their face hidden and enjoy some type of anonymity.
But in reality, the fact that the public actually does see pictures and ID’s of jackpot winners not only proves that lottery prizes are real and go to real people, but also act as a marketing tool to subtlety advertise that fact that here is real winner, and you could be next to win and appear in winner announcements.
So it is up to the winner to decide if it is worth getting their picture, first name, and home town published to receive their millions of dollars jackpot right away, or to be tied up in court for months or years trying to stay out the limelight, tying up income and the jackpot until the case is resolved. Just how bad do you want your lottery winnings?