If you win $50 million, many people think, your troubles are over. Apparently not.
The mysterious Lotto Max winner who waited nearly a year to present the supposed winning ticket is now suing the B.C. Lottery Corp. for the right to remain anonymous – even though each lottery ticket sold in B.C. contains a reminder on the back that winners must consent to having their photo taken and name published.
Many of us have spent time fantasizing about how we’d handle such a win, whether it’s $50 million or a relatively small sum like $5 million or $10 million.
Hiring a marching band to troop through your office, announcing you’ve hit the big time and won’t be coming back, is a common fantasy.
Another involves catching the first flight out of the country for somewhere, anywhere really, you’ve never been.
But launching a lawsuit? Really?
If you don’t want to abide by a contract, don’t sign it.
Essentially, that’s what you’re doing when you buy a lottery ticket; you’re agreeing to the resulting publicity that will come if you hit the jackpot.
Yes, some lotteries in other countries and a few U.S. states don’t publish the names of winners, which would certainly cut down on calls from former Grade 1 classmates and third cousins asking for cash, but a lottery run by the government needs to be transparent. Players need to know the prizes are really being awarded, not just trust in some government agency that says they are.
Besides, those corny photos of beaming winners lined up behind giant fake cheques are the best publicity any lottery can buy, so it’s definitely not in the interests of the BCLC to stop taking them.
We can see the case for some winners remaining anonymous – undercover police officers, prison guards and women hiding from abusive partners – and those are the kinds of exemptions most lotteries make.
But in all other cases it just doesn’t make sense.
If the winner has security concerns, he or she should just hire a team of bodyguards – and stop wasting money on a court challenge we’ll all end up paying for.
Or here’s another idea: let someone else claim the prize.
