Posted on: July 12, 2024, 06:07h.
Last updated on: July 12, 2024, 06:10h.
Someone in New Jersey won a $1.13 billion Mega Millions jackpot in March but has yet to claim the prize, according to state lottery officials.
This gives rise to the horrible thought that they might be sitting on a billion-dollar fortune without even knowing about it.
Of course, the unknown winner could just be getting their ducks in order. They might be busy hiring a team of lawyers and financial advisers to protect them from the shock of sudden ultra-wealth.
Or maybe they’ve heard of the “lottery curse” and think a billion dollars is more trouble than it’s worth.
Maybe the hamster ate the ticket.
Lightning Strike
The good news is that the mystery New Jerseyan, who beat odds of 1 in 302,575,350, still has eight months to claim what is the ninth largest prize in US lottery history before the 12-month deadline runs out.
Let’s put those odds into perspective. The chance of you — yes, you! – being struck by lightning once in your lifetime is one in 1.5 million. That means if you bought 200 tickets for the Mega Millions draw, you would have roughly the same chance of winning as you would have of being struck by lightning. We like a level playing field.
More good news. If the winner is anxious about the publicity, New Jersey law would allow them to collect the prize anonymously. Thanks to a law enacted in 2020, winners are no longer required to be paraded in front of cameras brandishing outsized novelty checks.
Many other state lotteries demand that jackpot winners become cogs in their relentless publicity machines, exposing them to scammers, freeloaders, and murderers, but not New Jersey.
Word of Advice
If the winner is still feeling nervous about coming forward, we’d like to share some advice from America’s (former) foremost “lottery lawyer,” Jason Kurland.
Kurland represented many of the biggest jackpot winners in the country, including the anonymous South Carolina individual who won the $1.5 billion Mega Millions jackpot in 2018.
In 2020, Kurland said the best advice for jackpot winners was to “keep your mouth shut and call a lawyer.”
Don’t advertise it,” he added. “Don’t tell too many people you won. If your name’s out there, everyone comes out. Not only family you haven’t spoken to in a long time, but charities. Mostly good. But some are bogus.”
Kurland is currently languishing in a federal prison following his conviction for defrauding lottery winners out of $107 million. Yes, he let us all down. But that doesn’t mean his advice wasn’t sensible at the time, and it reinforces that you can’t trust anyone, especially your lawyer.
The winner has the choice of a one-time cash payment of $537.5 million or the full value of the prize paid out through 29 annual payments that increase about 5% each year. That’s before federal and state taxes.
Should they never come forward, the jackpot will be redistributed among each of the 45 states that contributed to the prize pool.
The winning ticket was sold on March 26 at Shoprite Liquors in Neptune Township, N.J.
Ring any bells?
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