Trust Picks $2M Reward for Massachusetts Lottery Winner

The RCW Trust of Clinton has claimed the $2 million lottery prize from the Massachusetts  State Lottery’s “$2,000,000 50X Cashword” won off a scratch ticket on March 9. The ticket was sold at a Shell gas station in the Bay State, and the prize was picked through the trust on behalf of the winner who chose to remain anonymous.

Trusts Give Lottery Winners Privacy

Daniel Notaro, the person who claimed the prize on behalf of the anonymous winner picked the bulk payment of $1.3 million before taxes rather than annual instalments. The ticket itself was bought at a Shell gas station in Milford located at 139 Medway Road. Understandably, the Nouri convenience shop will receive a bonus for selling the winning ticket.

The bonus is set at $20,000. Staying anonymous in Massachusetts is difficult, especially when you win the lottery. In order to avoid this, the Massachusetts State Lottery allows for winners to use a “trust” option whereby they will ask someone else to collect the money for them. The trust’s identity must be made publicly known, however.

Of course, there are safeguards to ensure that the winnings will go to the right person. The trustee must deposit the prize money into the lottery trust account created for the lottery winner, which ensures that the rightful winner will receive the funds in the end. It also satisfies the condition for a name to be aired to the media while the actual winner may choose to keep the details about their personality private.

Massachusetts State Lottery interim executive director Mark William Bracken further elaborated on this process and said that legal entities and trusts could pick prizes on behalf of an actual winner and serve as “legal person” in the matter. Trusts have been a largely preferred option for many people, Bracken noted.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts has seen quite a few lottery winners this year. Two big seven-figure prizes were won – one on January 24 when a person won $33 million and another one on January 31 when a person won $31 million from the Mega Millions jackpot ticket. Both winners chose to turn to trust to claim their prizes.