The lottery represents an incredible opportunity for millions of people. We live in a country where upward mobility is possible, but the path to financial success is far from easy. For many, their strongest hope of becoming millionaires lies with the lottery. Winners are able to completely turn their lives around. Of course, that all depends on the winners receiving the money they won.
The state of Illinois is doing something absolutely shameful: it is denying lottery winners the money they have won. Hundreds of people have not seen a cent of their winnings, and they are finally ready to do something about it.
Tom Zimmerman is an attorney who has agreed to represent some of the winners in a lawsuit. This group is suing the state so that they can get the money they deserve. The state’s conduct in this manner is atrocious. According to Zimmerman, the total amount of money that the state has wrongfully withheld from lottery winners adds up to $288 million dollars.
As Yahoo! News explains, “The state recently announced that it was not paying any winnings worth more than $600 until its budget crisis is resolved – but it’s still running TV ads promoting the lottery.” Only giving the winners a minuscule fraction of their money is bad enough, but many should-be recipients haven’t even received that.
Needless to say, the people who have won the lottery in Illinois are extremely upset. One woman, Susan Rick, expressed her outrage to Inside Edition: “We won. We finally can have a comfortable life. Suddenly, you’re gonna pull the rug out from under us. We had a ticket for $250,000.”
Susan isn’t the only one who can’t believe what the state is doing. Rhonda Rasche had a ticket for $50,000. When she went to cash it in, she was told that her money would come within a few weeks. Months later, she still didn’t have a single penny of it.
In a desperate attempt to cover their tracks, the Illinois Lottery published a statement – as if there were any excuse for this kind of behavior. “Payment delays will occur because there is currently no legal authority for the Illinois Lottery to issue checks,” officials announced to Inside Edition. Because every business is successful without an employee to actually conduct the business.
These deceived winners have had enough. Many of them have joined together to sue the state for the money they have won. Zimmerman is doing everything he can to ensure that this situation is made right. “If any business would engage in this kind of conduct selling tickets and not paying out the winner, the state would shut them down and indict them for fraud,” Zimmerman declared.
We can only hope that this attorney wins his suit against the state of Illinois. No one should have to struggle for money that already has their name on it.
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