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.