Publicity brings significant apparent risk to lottery winners. Two years ago, a Georgia forklift operator who won $434,272 in a lottery was executed in his home by several masked robbers as he pleaded for his life.



In 2012, a 46-year-old Chicago man was poisoned with cyanide the day after he won a $1,000,000 lottery prize. While family members were suspected in the death, none have ever been charged, and the case remains unsolved.



And in 2005, an Illinois jackpot winner who claimed an approximately $20,000,000 prize was murdered by his sister-in-law and her boyfriend.

New Hampshire is one of a handful of states that permit lottery winners to form anonymous trusts to shield their newfound riches. But the woman already signed her name to the winning ticket and cannot alter her signature and hide her identity without voiding the ticket.



Writing her name, as opposed to the name of a trust, was a "huge mistake" based on her interpretation of rules posted on the lottery website, the woman said in her complaint in Hillsborough Superior Court in Nashua.



Her resulting dilemma – forego forever either a once-in-a-lifetime payday, or her anonymity – is legally impermissible, according to her attorney.