Iowa Lottery threatens to deny jackpot payout if winner stays anonymous

Comment #33

Iesha Kelly — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:19:33 GMT

Agreed.

Comment #32

myturn — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:17:06 GMT

I am all for anonymity, but this guy gives me the creeps. There is something very fishy about him. This is why lotteries should offer players the choice of registering. It can prevent anxiety, the only people who loose are cheats and the lawyers.

Comment #31

savagegoose — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:33:27 GMT

you know i been thinking abut this some.

the lottery officials shouldnt have given the lawyer guy and trust an extension at all. they should have said,

you have 2 hours till this expires now! tell us who bought the ticket in 2 hours or its worthless :

Maybe someone who lived in hoosier,. should sue the lotto company for giving an illegal extension without a court order. sure if lawyers wanted an extension to time limit, they had a whole year to apply.

tickets expire in a

Comment #30

rdgrnr — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:51:21 GMT

Well, thank ya kindly, Urbangirlie, I'm beholden to ya.

Hammer down on that Fantasy 5

Comment #29

Urbangirlie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:30:56 GMT

Thank you! And BTW, you are one of my favorite posters Your quick wit always gives me a good chuckle. I hope this will be a lucky year for me too! I have hit 3 numbers 6 times this year in Fantasy 5 (here in Cali) which is more than ever before so I am hopeful, well at least up until the end of the next drawing anyway, lol.

Good luck to you as well rdgrnr

Comment #28

rdgrnr — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:22:34 GMT

Welcome to Lottery Post, Urbangirlie, best of luck to ya

Comment #27

Urbangirlie — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:06:52 GMT

Pretty excited to see how this all turns out. My guess is no one will come forward. They are busted and they know it! They are probably already in the Caribbean

Comment #26

myturn — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:07:33 GMT

Press Complaints Commission - Lottery Guidance Note - Lottery Winners

Winners who opt for anonymity

Under the terms of the licence granted to the UK lottery organisers Camelot, winners are entitled to anonymity. If winners do opt for anonymity, the Commission would generally expect the press to respect this wish. To do otherwise may raise issues under the terms of Clause 3 of the Code, which relates to privacy. There may of course be exceptions to this if newspapers and magazines ca... [ More ]

Comment #25

rdgrnr — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:59:11 GMT

I wonder what everybody's aversion to signing tickets is all about.

It's really not very strenuous.

Comment #24

savagegoose — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:35:08 GMT

wow stealing a ticket off of someones fridge door? can you believe i never thought of that? am i naive or what?

tks for reminding me to keep tickets secure, and if i give as gifts to put the name of the recipient on it.

Comment #23

KY Floyd — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:16:23 GMT

Maybe it's not the media attention they're concerned with. If the person claiming the prize isn't the rightful owner they shouldn't care if everyone on the planet knows somebody is claiming the prize, as long as the rightful owner doesn't realize it's their ticket. I can't imagine any scenario where waiting longer reduces the chance that the rightful owner won't reclaim their ticket.

Suppose it was a couple of weeks after the drawing and you noticed that the ticket on a somebody's refrigerato... [ More ]

Comment #22

savagegoose — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:32:41 GMT

over in this thread https://www.lotterypost.com/news/241644 is an example of someone who may well have been the original buyer of this ticket.

gotta say id rather the lotto officials make certain the correct person gets the money.

Comment #21

OldSchoolPa — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:23:51 GMT

I have a new motto...if I can't win, then I hope the jackpot is spread out thin so as to not be a big deal. This situation is making me quite happy indeed. Of course, I am going to be a hypocrite when I say that when I win, I hope I am the sole jackpot winner

Comment #20

EXMECHANIC — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:12:12 GMT

I may be in the minority here but I salute Iowa Lottery security. Sometimes integrity is all we have...

Comment #19

OscarRamb — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:42:44 GMT

in his quest to stay bypass the rules and stay completely anonynmous, the winner has had more press than 250 million dollar jackpot winners. He only won 14 million which is next to nothing in jackpot standards so its not like anyone would of cared. Its not even a national lottery so i don't know he needed to got to such great lengths to remain anonymous. And unless he found his ticket the day it was claimed, turning in the ticket 2 hours before its expiration was extremely stupid. I wonder what... [ More ]

Comment #18

larry3100 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:57:18 GMT

Iowa Lottery Officials have stated that the winning $14.2 million ticket is bona fide as genuine.You would think the person who bought that winning lottery ticket would have signed it.The only person that did sign it was Crawford Shaw,an attorney for the trust.

Comment #17

ChazzMatt — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:56:21 GMT

waiting until the last minute actually gets you MORE publicity. But necessary in case this is some duplicate ticket that was printed by a lottery tech insider. It happened before, it can happen again. Somebody probably hacked the lottery system code. They saw millions of dollars about to expire, and put their once-in-a-lifetime plan into action. They had to wait until the last minute in case the REAL winner found the ticket in a drawer somewhere.

Comment #16

ChazzMatt — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:50:07 GMT

Or a situation like a few years ago where lottery computer techs figured out a way to print duplicate winning tickets that were identical to the originals, bypassing all security. In a situation like this, some person with top level access sees the time limit is about to expire on MILLIONS of dollars, the real winner hasn't shown, so why let all that money go to waste? They put their long-thought out plan into action. They print the ticket, form a trust with a shady out-of-state lawyer and tell... [ More ]

Comment #15

JPJohnson — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:02:18 GMT

To avoid media coverage, claiming the ticket during a big news event like the Super Bowl, Election night, or some major breaking news story that's ongoing would be the best thing. I've noticed lottery winners don't get too much coverage during times like those.

Comment #14

RedStang — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:24:30 GMT

After hearing they might not pay, you would think the real winner would show up. Makes me sick to see it could go unclaimed.

Comment #13

MississippiMudd — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:59:34 GMT

Waiting to the last minute would draw the greatest attention and was a dumb move. The best way to reduce the attention would be to wait 2 or 3 months and claim the day after a really large jackpot winner came forward when all the media attention would be on the $200 million winner.

Also, if I am reading correctly, the lottery officials are claiming that the winner's name and city is required to be released by Iowa law. It does not matter if it is claimed by a trust. The name of the individua... [ More ]

Comment #12

mayhem — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:49:19 GMT

Correct. Stolen or not. It would have been kept private and nobody would be the wiser. There is still no advantage to waiting till the last minute though. At least I can't think of any reason.

Comment #11

ttech10 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:56:21 GMT

waited until the last second to claim through a trust so that the real winner wouldn't be aware of what happened.

That last bit just doesn't make sense to me, though. I would think any person with a working brain would realize that someone turning a winning jackpot ticket in only hours before it expires (a YEAR after it won) would be noticed by quite a few media outlets. Of course we are talking about criminal minds here, so not usually the brightest.

I was under the assumption that even w... [ More ]

Comment #10

mcginnin56 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:22:46 GMT

Ahhhhhh..........miss those old Monopoly games. I still have my get out of jail free card. Wonder if Shaw still has his.

Comment #9

LottoGuyBC — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:46:03 GMT

Comment #8

TheRightPrice — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:24:43 GMT

Comment #7

kapla — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:21:31 GMT

This is not going to end well for Shaw. This is 'fake/forgery/stolen' written ALL over it..

Comment #6

Guru101 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:15:27 GMT

I don't think it was a quick pick. If you look at the ticket at 0:58 in the video, it shows 2 lines, the first 3 are the same, and the hotball is the same. Also, neither of the lines have QP next to them. It's very possible this ticket was stolen and the thief waited until the last second to claim through a trust so that the real winner wouldn't be aware of what happened.

Comment #5

Lukep — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:44:53 GMT

Something is a little fuzzy here 2. I think the ticket was stolen from its real winner.

Comment #4

Laterne — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:11:10 GMT

Maybe Mr Shaw is the owner or one of the owners of the ticket, but I wonder if it is a quick pick or not and how and or from who he got the ticket, I think that lottery winners have a right to privacy, but the state lottery also needs to know all of the info that they are asking for, but there should be a law that allows the state lottery to keep that info secret so that it is not made public as lottery winners should have a right to their privacy.

Comment #3

larry3100 — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 04:10:14 GMT

The person who bought that winning Iowa lottery ticket did not sign the back of that ticket.There should be a new rule in the state lotteries that would state on the back of winning tickets All winning lottery tickets must be signed by the winner and address be stated . They would still be eligible for a trust.Let's hope it turns out not to be another Abraham Shakespeare type story.

Comment #2

s5thomps — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:34:54 GMT

INCREDIBLE! If it was my lawyer the guy would have been fired weeks ago. I have a feeling that he is hiding something or maybe he is the owner of the ticket and promised to cut some friends in on the loot if he was able to form a trust. He knew it would make news if he claimed the jackpot and any money that was owed would be seized. It's going to be interesting to see how this all turns out

Comment #1

time*treat — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:32:10 GMT

The questions about Shaw are no surprise to Florida interior designer Elizabeth Calomiris, Mazzuto's ex-wife. She said she knew Shaw when she was married to Mazzuto. After Shaw left Industrial Enterprises, she said Shaw begged her to give him damaging personal and business information she had on her ex-husband and came to her home to get it.

She said Shaw used the information as leverage to obtain a settlement in which he was paid the $2.3 million in company shares, and she now regrets helpin... [ More ]

Iowa Lottery threatens to deny jackpot payout if winner stays anonymous

Lottery Post — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:01:34 GMT

Unprecidented move by lottery may include criminal investigation

Includes video report

By Todd Northrop

Iowa Lottery officials have set a 3 p.m. Friday deadline for the mystery winner of a multi-million dollar Hot Lotto jackpot to reveal themselves or their claim on the prize will be denied.

Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich talks about the Friday deadline for an unclaimed Hot Lotto jackpot during a press conference Monday afternoon. (Rodney White/The Register)

The mysterious winne... [ More ]