Now that the madness over the $1.3 billion Mega Millions jackpot is calming back down, you don’t need to bother checking your tickets unless you purchased them at a gas station in Des Plaines, Illinois. The winner or winners have not yet come forward, allowing for the possibility that the winner was part of a workplace pool or something similar. But the question as to who became an instant billionaire (until the taxes are paid) is still hanging out there. The reality is that there is a very good chance we’ll never know. In Illinois, players are not required to publicly release their identity if they bring home a substantial winner of a prize worth more than a quarter million dollars. There are a few states that allow big winners to remain anonymous and there remains a standing debate as to whether that’s the right way to handle it. But pause and ask yourself the applicable question. If you were holding onto that ticket right now, would you want to tell everyone? (NY Post)

There’s a chance the identity of the winner of the $1.337 billion Mega Millions jackpot will never be known — thanks to an Illinois law allowing people who score more than $250,000 to keep their names secret.

The winning ticket to the mind-boggling fortune was sold at the Speedy Cafe Speedway gas station in Des Plaines, lottery officials have said.

No one has come forward yet to claim the massive prize — with lotto officials saying it’s not even clear whether the winner was an individual or pool.

Nineteen states offer some sort of anonymity for winners. The rest do not. Most, though not all of the ones that do tend to be red and purple states. Blue states, as you might expect, mostly want to keep everyone’s nose in your business.

New York is one of those states. The state legislature actually passed a law to allow winners to remain anonymous in 2018, but Andrew Cuomo vetoed it. But there is one loophole in the rules that lets people get around the disclosure requirement. Winners are allowed to form a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) to accept the winnings and hire a representative to pick up the check. This has been done several times now.

The state’s argument for requiring the winners to go public is based on the assertion that the “prizes are public funds, so we owe it to all our players to disclose the names of winners.” Further, making the identities of the winners public allows residents to verify that those people are real and that the prizes are actually being given out and not pocketed by the state government.

But on the downside, once your name is out there, you are an immediate target for scammers, thieves, and probably even some relatives you don’t want to “suddenly” hear from after many years. Surveys conducted in recent years asking people what they would do if they hit it big on the lottery showed that the first thing most would choose to do would be to “keep it secret.” I know that would be my first impulse. But living in New York, I suppose I’ll just have to consult my attorney about forming an LLC when my ship comes in.