A popular option for claiming lottery winnings in some states involves receiving the prize through a trust. The goal is generally to maintain privacy on the part of the winner.
This was the case with a recent jackpot won in an Ohio Lottery scratcher game. According to this Ohio Lottery press release, The EAS Trust has claimed the first prize in the “$250,000 a Year for Life” game. They chose the “lump sum” option, a one-time payment of $2,500,000.
This short video by Ohio station WKYC explains that Ohio is one of the few states that allows lottery winners the option to remain anonymous. Their legal analyst suggests creating a blind trust prior to claiming your winnings.
Where was the winning ticket sold?
The Ohio Lottery $250,000 a Year for Life winning scratcher ticket was sold at Colla’s Market, a convenience store in Austintown, Ohio. The location is shown on the following map.
Are there any grand prizes remaining for this game?
A great question, and one that leads to a couple of discrepancies. The press release states that: (emphasis added)
“The final top prize for the Ohio Lottery’s $10 scratch-off, $250,000 a Year for Life, has been claimed by The EAS Trust, Jeffrey D. Heinz, trustee.”
This appears to clearly indicate that no top prizes remain for this game. But the game listing page, as of this writing, shows the remaining number of top prizes (listed as “$250K/YR FOR 20 YRS”) as three.
To add to the confusion, the name of the game is shown as “Monopoly $250,000 a Year for Life” while the press release refers to it as simply “$250,000 a Year for Life.” I am not 100% certain that these are in fact the same game, but they were the closest match I could find.
A scratcher game with some draw game characteristics
State lottery games generally fall into one of two categories: scratcher or “instant win” games, and draw games. The game resulting in the $2,500,000 jackpot described in this article was a scratcher game, but it wound up being a draw game as well.
This is the result of an interesting, if poorly documented, feature of many Ohio Lottery games. My initial clue about the “Top Prize Drawing” came from the press release for this game:
“The winner was chosen in the game’s top prize drawing, a special drawing for tickets with the TPD entry symbol.”
Naturally, I looked for more details about this “special drawing” on the Ohio Lottery website. I found references to this drawing, along with the mysterious “TPD entry symbol,” in many press releases but could not find a page or section devoted to explaining what seemed to be an important aspect of the game.
I did find more information in another Ohio Lottery press release, this one from 2015:
“All Ohio Lottery games of $5 to $20 have a Top Prize Drawing (TPD) feature. Players who scratch to reveal the TPD symbol win $5,500 and entry into a drawing for the ticket’s top prize once all TPD entries have been received.”
The Top Prize Drawing appears to function as a kind of “second chance” feature, but only for a select few of the games that include the special TPD symbol. In the case of the winning game described above, the Top Prize Drawing had a total of 76 entries.
One takeaway: Be sure to understand all the rules!
Here is a painful scenario: Can you imagine having a potentially jackpot-winning game card that you threw away because you didn’t realize the significance of the “TPD” symbol? Without a clear understanding of all the fine points of the game, this seems like a possibility.
This is the kind of thing I would consider a possible “speed bump” on the road to windfall wealth! At Windfall Wealth Report, we will do our best to highlight this kind of important detail whenever we can. Be sure to bookmark our site and check back often for more stories of windfall wealth.