Why New York doesn’t allow anonymous lottery winners

The policy of requiring lottery winners to be identified before getting their checks is due to two major factors: transparency, so the public knows who's taking home millions of public dollars, and as a valuable public-relations tool, experts said. "If someone hits for a half-billion dollars, it's a great way to make the public aware these opportunities are out there," said John Cirillo, publicist for Empire City Casino in Yonkers.

Westchester Woman Busted For Raffle Scam Involving Childhood Cancer Victim

A 35-year-old woman from Yonkers has been arrested in connection to a fundraising scam involving a child who died of cancer. Last month, the Yonkers Police Department issued an alert to local residents following reports of an alleged scam, where tickets were being sold throughout Westchester by a person selling "fundraising" tickets for a raffle related to Nolan Scully, a 4-year-old boy in Maryland who died from cancer following a fierce battle with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare soft-tissue cancer.