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Advice for Lottery Winners

by Kevin Walter on Saturday, February 06, 2010

What to do after winning the lottery?

There are some critical steps that you need to take as soon as you win the lottery.  The first and most important step - shut up!  Don't tell a soul.  Don't tell your spouse, your partner, your kids, your dog.  OK, you can tell your dog. As hard as it is to keep your mouth shut, this is actually a very important step.  Anonymity is the name of the game when it comes to successfully dealing with your lottery winnings.  As soon as someone knows you have won the lottery, the onslaught of hucksters, long lost relatives and any number of snake oil salesmen will appear.  So, it's critical that you keep your trap shut until you are prepared to divulge your secret.

Step two, consultant an attorney.  Not just any attorney, but most typically an attorney that specializes in high net worth individuals typically focusing on estate planning and perhaps lottery winning directly.  These specialties exist and heck, you can afford an attorney, so use one!  Your new attorney, if they are worth their salt, should immediately direct you to set up a blind trust.  In many states, it is legal for blind trusts to claim lottery winnings. This keeps your identity out of the public record and the aforementioned schlocksters away from your door.  However, even though it's a blind trust, be aware that many states require that the trust divulge it's beneficiaries internally to the state.  This is done to match the names of beneficiaries against the child support roles.  After all, any new multi-millionaire will want to do right by their children!

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Comments
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Why a "blind" trust?
Why would someone give the trustee complete, discretionary power as to how to manage the trust and its assets? Wouldn't better options include forming a foreign trust, with yourself as the trustee? This affords the same level of privacy. Another option is forming a trust in another state, once again with yourself as the trustee. Lottery would only disclose the name of the trust...not the trustee nor state where formed. Just seems stupid to put the winnings in a blind trust.
253 out of 412 people found this comment informative.
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How to locate an attorney
how does one locate an attorney within their area such as the ones mentioned in the article without leaking their identification as a lottery winner?
207 out of 349 people found this comment informative.
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How to locate an attorney
How does one locate an attorney within Memphis Tennesse, such as the ones mentioned in the article without leaking their identification as a lottery winner?
153 out of 300 people found this comment informative.
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Locating an attorney
The best way to locate an attorney is to call your local bar association.  You want to find an attorney that specializes in lottery law or tax law.  The bar association will provide a confidential referral to you.
157 out of 280 people found this comment informative.
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Spend on
The sad thing is 95% of the lottery winners that need to know this information will be to busy spending to every take the time to look for it
127 out of 245 people found this comment informative.
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Very Informative
This article is very informative.   What is the difference between the blind trust and foreign trust?
88 out of 166 people found this comment informative.
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I have been looking for a long time and found this post.
I gotta agree with you for the most part, nicely put.
33 out of 66 people found this comment informative.
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Very exceptional pieces of information. Very nice webpage though. I applaud
very well written blog post! I found this information very usefull. I hope you post more on this topic soon.
31 out of 56 people found this comment informative.
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What?
So if I put my son down as a beneficiary I would have to pay his child support off?
25 out of 48 people found this comment informative.
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Do I have to put my husband down as a beneficiary?
We live in the state of Arizona.
30 out of 52 people found this comment informative.
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WINNING THE LOTTERY
Haven't won the lottery but have been doing research on what to do just in case I do win  it (hey, you never know). So much information to know, but indeed very helpful if you want to avoid the "lottery curse".
26 out of 52 people found this comment informative.
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Winning reprocussions
If you win, does your child support automatically go up?  
21 out of 42 people found this comment informative.
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Canadian Trust
If you go to Canada and set up the trust,will you still be able to collect your winnings. Please give details.
8 out of 15 people found this comment informative.
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Refrain from doing any life altering plans for at least one year??
heck! I could be dead in a year! So much for waiting. No! Spend the dang money but be descrete. You should hire professionals to manage your money. That I agree.
1 out of 3 people found this comment informative.
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