Illinoisan Wins $552M Lottery: Can She Legally Remain Anonymous?

About a week back, the Illinois Lottery winner of the $552 million Mega Millions jackpot came forward to claim her winnings from the June 4th jackpot drawing. This lottery win is unique because she won it playing online, making her the biggest iLottery prize winner in history.

Although she's definitely a big winner, she didn't get the full $552 million. After taxes and all the other deductions were applied, her total take-home dropped to $260.2 million.

In reading about this person's win, it became apparent to me that she's a nice person who's going to take care of her mom and the rest of her family...and keep her identity completely anonymous.

Sure, Their Lives Change For The Better With An Influx Of A Lot Of Cash, But Lottery Winners Have Also Talked About How Bad Things Can Get If Everyone Knows You Won

One thing that many lottery winners have happen, much to their annoyance, is everyone they've ever known comes out of the woodwork looking for a payout of some sort because the winner's name has been made public.

I had heard once that if you wanted to remain anonymous with your lottery win, you should have picked another state to live in other than Illinois...but it turns out that's only partially true.

In Illinois, The Size Of Your Jackpot Win Plays A Big Part In Whether Or Not You Can Keep Your Identity Private

Here in Illinois, if you win a lottery jackpot worth over $250,000 you can request to keep your name and hometown confidential. Illinois' latest winner gets a little more than that as you've learned, so I guess that Illinois lottery officials think that prize money totaling less than a quarter million dollars just isn't worth anyone's time to bug a winner for a few bucks.

If you wanted to keep all that information to yourself, these states are happy to try to accommodate you (hat tip to MyHighPlains.com):

• Delaware: Winners are allowed to remain anonymous, regardless of prize size.
• Kansas: Winners in Kansas can request to remain anonymous.
• Maryland: In most cases, winners can remain anonymous.
• Mississippi: The state lottery won’t identify a winner unless they have given written consent.
• Missouri: Your name is only released if you give the lottery written consent
• Montana: Your name is not released, but where you live may be.
• New Jersey: Winners can choose to remain anonymous.
• North Dakota: Winners have the option to remain anonymous
• South Carolina: A winner in South Carolina can remain anonymous, despite recent efforts to change that.
• Wyoming: Winners can remain anonymous or give permission to the state’s lottery to share some information.