Official lottery results, prize amounts and winners are published on the New York State Lottery’s official website. Winnings may be claimed at NY Lottery retailers and are subject to federal, state and local tax withholdings for U.S. citizens and residents. If winnings are placed in a trust, the Lottery must have identifying information (including Social Security numbers) for each trust beneficiary to check for possible claims or offsets on the prize amount.
In the days before state lotteries began to become commonplace, illegal “number games” thrived. But when state governments started offering them, the enticements of the chance to win big sums from small bets proved irresistible. With states scrambling to find ways to maintain existing services without enraging an increasingly anti-tax electorate, these gambling operations seemed like the perfect solution: A ballot measure that would generate billions of dollars and, they argued, could easily be redirected to support a specific line item of the state budget, usually education but sometimes elder care, public parks or aid for veterans.