Lottery winners

10 March 2018

By John Marchel

Lottery by definition is a game of chance in which subscribers (players) buy numbered chances in hopes of winning prizes. The winning numbers are chosen by lot, in which the total lot can vary from a small amount to a large amount of numbers.

Lotteries have been around for hundreds of years.

The first “government” lottery was in France in 1539. Lotteries held a prominent place in the early history of America. The Jamestown Virginia colony was supported in England by a lottery in 1612 that raised £29,000. Lotteries, in the early stages of the new Republic, became the standard method for the U.S. government to raise funds for public works, like the Erie Canal, buildings for higher education, schools like Yale and Harvard, and building the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C. However, in 1890 Congress banned lotteries because of the many scandals that had developed over the years.

The word lottery itself is derived from the Italian word lotto, meaning “destiny” or “fate.”

The second revolution of lotteries started in 1964 when New Hampshire authorized a lottery to obtain new revenues for local education. New York followed in 1966. New Jersey introduced its lottery in 1970, and was followed by 10 other states by 1975. Today, only seven states offer no lottery. Some of the smaller populated states have joined together to form joint lotteries, with games like Powerball and Mega Millions that offer very large wins. However, winners will have to pay the federal income tax (39.6%) to satisfy Uncle Sam. The good news is states vary when it comes to state tax for winners.

In late August 2017, Mavis Wanczyk, 53, a mother of two, became the winner of the largest undivided lottery jackpot in North American history — some $758.7 million. Wanczyk will take home $336 million after taxes and has already quit her job at a medical center in Chicopee, Massachusetts, where she worked for 32 years. After paying the 39.6% to the Fed’s, she also has to pay Massachusetts an additional 5% tax.

If she had lived and won in California, Delaware, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, or Washington State she would not have to pay any state tax. That would have allowed her to take home almost $38 million more. In the end, I guess that most of us could survive on just the $336 million.


BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW

• King Carlos III started Spain’s national lottery in 1763. A record of winning numbers has been kept there since 1812.
• Today 43 states, plus Washington, D.C., the territories of Puerto Rico, America Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Island all have lotteries.
• In California, there are over 19,00 lottery retailers located across the state selling lottery tickets.
• Claude Monet won 100,000 French francs (about $13,450) in the 1891 French lottery. That gamble provided him with the means to quit his job as a messenger and do what he loved most – paint.
• In October 2005, 83-year-old Edward St. John, a regular “trash diver” in Blackstone, Mass. found a state lottery ticket worth $1 million in the trash barrel outside a convenience store. Another person claimed it, but the state ruled he was entitled to it as the “sole bearer” of the ticket.
• The first rule in lottery playing is to sign your ticket.
• It’s been estimated that 55% of people in the world buy lottery tickets each year, making it the most popular form of gambling.
• The nation’s capital is also our lottery capital. The average D.C. household spends $1,000 per year for lottery tickets. That is higher than any other state in the country.