Hi there, I am a new member and here is my first post, and look at that I'm posting it in the correct place so please go easy on me.
I am a casual Mega Million's player, I know that the odds are against me, so I never depend on winning. After all it isn't easy to get Fate, Luck and Chance too all smile at you at the same exact time. However, I figure if I'm going to play the game I might as well be prepared for even the smallest chance of winning. I've read the horror stories, I get the general idea of what to do and what not to do. The part I am always stuck on is that portion of time between discovering you won, and actually acquiring the winnings.
Neither the Mega Million's official site, nor New Jersey's lottery site will get into the specifics. The most I can glean from my state's site is that it takes three weeks to get a check from them. But is that three weeks from any time you come forward, or might it be like the PowerBall's FAQ says; that if you wait for the winning state to collect the money from the other states before you come forward that you can get it quicker?
If they would just go into detail about this it would help those rare lucky winners better prepare how they go about coming forward.
About the dog and pony show they do for the media, the big check ceremony, do they do that when you actually get your winnings or is there a gap of days or weeks between that and your actual access to the winnings? Oh, and is your name let out when you get your ticket validated or do they actually extend the courtesy to wait until the ceremony before that? I don't mind the media thing, I know that is part of winning. The thing I'd like to avoid is unnecessary waiting around town while everyone knows you won but you don't even have the money yet so you havn't the means to take that much recommended vacation to escape the vultures that begin circling about you.
Another thing, my state's FAQ is a little sketchy about this, but if you were a jackpot winner, they don't really expect you to take that ticket to any random state retailer to validate it do they? I would figure and hope that they'd have a means to validate the ticket right there at the state's lottery headquarters. "Hey look I won the lottery." *snatch* "No genius, looks like I did!"
I've searched Google off and on for answers to these questions but never had much luck, I've even spent a bit of time searching this forum for similar topics, but with little luck, so I've registered to this fine community in hopes that someone might shed some light on these questions, or perhaps point me to an article or thread that does.
Thank you for your time,
--Racso