CHAPTER 4.  PRIZES

§9025.  Prizes taxable; withholdings from prize; verification and payment; exceptions; unclaimed prize money; corporation liability; eligibility to purchase ticket and receive prize

A.  Proceeds of any lottery prize of five hundred dollars or more shall be subject to Louisiana state income tax.  Any attachments, garnishments, or executions authorized and issued pursuant to law shall also be withheld if timely served upon the process agent of the corporation.  This Section shall not apply to a retailer except for the payment of state or local tax.

B.  The board shall adopt rules to establish a system of verifying the validity of tickets claimed to win prizes and to effect payment of such prizes, except that:

(1)  Except as provided for in R.S. 47:9027, no prize, nor any portion of a prize, nor any right of any person to a prize awarded shall be assignable.  Any prize, or portion thereof, remaining unpaid at the death of a prizewinner shall be paid to the estate of the deceased prizewinner or to the trustee of a trust established by the deceased prizewinner as settlor, if a copy of the trust document or instrument has been filed with the corporation, along with a notarized letter of direction from the settlor, and no written notice of revocation has been received by the corporation prior to the settlor's death.  Following a settlor's death and prior to any payment to such a trustee, the corporation shall obtain from the trustee and each trust beneficiary a written agreement to indemnify and hold the corporation harmless with respect to any claims that may be asserted against the corporation arising from payment to or through the trust.  Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Subtitle, any person, pursuant to an appropriate judicial order, shall be paid the prize to which a winner is entitled.

(2)  No ticket shall knowingly be sold to any person under the age of twenty-one, but this Section does not prohibit the purchase of a ticket by a person twenty-one years of age or older for the purpose of making a gift to any person of any age.  If the donee of a winning ticket is under the age of twenty-one years, the corporation shall direct payment to a member of the person's family who is twenty-one years of age or older, or to the legal representative of the person on behalf of such person.  The person named as custodian shall have the same powers and duties as prescribed for a custodian pursuant to the uniform Transfers to Minors Act.

(3)  No prize shall be paid arising from claimed tickets that are stolen, counterfeit, altered, fraudulent, unissued, produced or issued in error, unreadable, not received, unclaimed or not recorded by the corporation within applicable deadlines, lacking in captions that conform and agree with the play symbols as appropriate to the lottery game involved, or not in compliance with such additional specific rules and public or confidential validation and security tests of the corporation appropriate to the particular lottery game involved.

(4)  No particular prize in any lottery game shall be paid more than once, and in the event of a binding determination that more than one claimant is entitled to a particular prize, the sole remedy of such claimants is the award to each of them an equal share in the prize.

(5)  A holder of a winning ticket from a Louisiana lottery game or from a multistate or multisovereign lottery game shall claim a prize within one hundred eighty days after the drawing in which the prize was won.  In any Louisiana lottery game or in a multistate or multisovereign lottery game in which the player may determine instantly if he has won or lost, he shall claim a prize within ninety days after the end of the lottery game.  If a valid claim is not made for a prize within the applicable period, the prize shall constitute an unclaimed prize for purposes of Paragraph (3) of this Subsection.

(6)  A person holding a winning lotto ticket in the amount of six hundred dollars or more from a lotto game must provide his or her name and city or area of residence to the corporation to claim a prize.  When the prize claimant is a legal entity other than a natural person, the name and city or area of legal residence of each natural person holding an interest of any kind in the legal entity shall be provided to the corporation.  Such information shall be deemed a public record as provided in R.S. 47:9006 and may be used by the corporation for publicity purposes.

C.  No prize shall be paid upon a ticket purchased or sold in violation of this Subtitle.  Any such prize shall constitute an unclaimed prize for purposes of Paragraph (3) of Subsection B.

D.  Any unclaimed prize money shall be added to the pool from which future prizes are to be awarded or used for special prize promotions.

E.  The corporation is discharged of all liability upon payment of a prize.

F.  No ticket shall be purchased by and no prize shall be paid to any of the following persons: any member of the board of directors, officer, or employee of the corporation or to any spouse, child, brother, sister, or parent residing as a member of the same household in the principal place of abode of any such person.

Acts 1990, No. 1045, §1, eff. Nov. 7, 1990; Acts 1993, No. 741, §1; Acts 1995, No. 1022, §1, eff. June 29, 1995; Acts 1998, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 146, §2; Acts 2007, No. 139, §1.

*AS APPEARS IN ENROLLED BILL.  SEE R.S. 9:1785, 2204, AND 2276.