The mystery of who won $50 million and waited almost a year to claim the prize could remain a mystery if the holder of the winning ticket gets her or his way.
Although the ticket was verified just before its March 14 deadline, it’s recently surfaced that the ticket holder wishes to remain anonymous and is taking that wish to court.
If you remember from news reports (and even columns of mine) past, this particular ticket has a bit of a weird backstory.
It’s the central piece in a lawsuit between an employee at a Burnaby Shoppers Drug Mart against a co-worker, whom she charged was in charge of purchasing a lottery pool ticket.
She claimed the winning numbers were the group’s, and that the man had the ticket. He claimed he forgot to buy the ticket that week and it was all a big mix-up.
That mess is still wending its way through the courts.
Although the actual winning ticket has been verified, whether it belongs to the man named in that court case obviously remains guarded as the ticket holder fights for anonymity.
This bid for anonymity comes despite the BCLC’s clear policy that winners’ names and photos be released.
In our own community, that policy came in handy when a local doctor had the good fortune of winning on a Set for Life ticket in February.
He and his wife were also kind enough to share their story about winning with the Herald — and anybody reading the Herald.
The proviso to have your picture taken by BCLC is one that’s part of the game.
By making that impulse scratch and win ticket purchase or picking up a ticket to play your weekly numbers, you’re signing on for at least some publicity if you end up the lucky winner.
Sure, there’s a bit of sympathy for lottery winners who have to contend with pestering callers and insincere solicitors of donations and handouts.
Occasionally, money-grubbing behaviour escalates into real danger, as it did in the case of a 2007 extortion plot schemed up by a Montreal man planning to rob a couple he didn’t know of their $27 million winnings.
The man was foiled by police before making contact with the couple, but that situation led to Loto-Québec temporarily suspending its requirement to publicize winners’ names if their wins came in over $4 million. (That province’s lottery corporation has since reinstated its old policy to publicize winners.)
Simply keeping big winners’ names and faces out of press releases can’t necessarily mitigate that danger completely — after all, people can learn a lot about their friends, neighbours and even complete strangers with relative ease in this Internet age.
While I understand the hesitation on the winner’s behalf to go public, I also get the irritation on everyone else’s behalf when they don’t.
Fifty million dollars is just too much money not to reveal the winner’s identity, especially given the controversy surrounding this ticket.
It’s a matter of transparency. When that much money is involved, contributed by other people and benefitting the public coffers, public record is important to keep corporations such as the BCLC and the games it runs open, transparent and accountable.
The rare exception of keeping a lottery winner’s identity secret in Canada is determined on a case-by-case basis, naturally.
But in this case, with such a controversial ticket, keeping the player’s identity secret is not a move in good faith to the regular players of the game.
