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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.
377 out of 595 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?
322 out of 525 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?
256 out of 472 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.
278 out of 452 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
231 out of 402 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?
184 out of 307 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.
125 out of 216 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.
105 out of 181 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?
99 out of 168 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.
104 out of 179 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".
102 out of 176 people found this comment informative.
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Winning reprocussions
If you win, does your child support automatically go up?  
89 out of 156 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.
70 out of 122 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.
63 out of 112 people found this comment informative.
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Stay anonymous at all costs
Change your name legally to a very common name.  Set up a new bank account under that name.  Then claim your winnings without any kind of press conference and don't tell a soul.  It has worked for me.
71 out of 116 people found this comment informative.
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jordans for sale
For today, I will learn something new.
41 out of 77 people found this comment informative.
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what to write on back on winning ticket?
If collecting by blind trust, if your name & address are written on the back of the winning lottery ticket, is that information still kept private?
42 out of 69 people found this comment informative.
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What about forming a corporation?
If you form a corporation to claim the ticket, can you keep taxes lower?
What about a non-profit corporation...with me as the CEO, wife as the FIO,etc?
16 out of 43 people found this comment informative.
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What if you are in debt?
Should you not spend enough money to become debt free?
13 out of 24 people found this comment informative.
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There is nothing wrong with debt if you can afford it
Its called leverage.  All corporations use leverage to improve their position, even if they are sitting on billions of dollars in cash.  Nothing wrong with debt.  Of course, you should consider paying off any debt if the interest rate is more than you could expect by investing that money.
11 out of 23 people found this comment informative.
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Pay Debt
Since many lottery winners have high credit card debt at the time they win, this debt should be paid promptly.
10 out of 19 people found this comment informative.
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BxMhmYeaz
Great post with lots of ipmortant stuff.
10 out of 14 people found this comment informative.
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Try article
I really liked the article, and the very cool blog
8 out of 17 people found this comment informative.
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opportunity to RSS
Yes there should realize the opportunity to RSS commentary, quite simply, CMS is another on the blog.
10 out of 16 people found this comment informative.
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try Reed
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10 out of 22 people found this comment informative.
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I Just Won
I just won the lotto, so this article was extremely helpful, thank you.
3 out of 12 people found this comment informative.
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