What to Do If You Win $1 Billion – Advice from Lottery Lawyer Kurt Panouses

Timothy Schultz:

If someone watching or listening to this were to win, say $500 million or a billion tomorrow, what's the first thing they should do?

Kurt Panouses:

There's a big difference between a claim and a plan. Lost and stolen tickets are a big thing. Protect your tickets, put them in a safe place, put a plan together, and then go make your claim. It's the stuff movies are made of.

Timothy Schultz:

Welcome to Lottery Dreams and Fortune! I am really, really excited to welcome back Kurt Panouses to the program today. He is a lawyer who has represented several different lottery winners. He's a CPA. He's actually the stealth attorney, which you will learn for obvious reasons, but it's incredible. Kurt, welcome back to the program. Thank you. Thanks for having me. You have worked with so many lottery winners, like people have won all kinds of jackpots from thousands to hundreds of millions to over a billion. So what's the biggest piece of advice you keep giving people that they tend to ignore or that they don't take seriously? Is there something that people need to pay a little bit more attention to...some people?

Kurt Panouses:

You know, the one thing that people don't give enough time to, and I understand it, because all of a sudden there was a drawing the night before, or they went to the corner store and bought a scratch-off ticket and revealed certain numbers, and this piece of paper that they have in their hand is now worth a million dollars, ten million dollars, a billion dollars. They have a lot of nerves, they have a lot of anxiety. You know, it's very difficult for them to grasp the, you know, the concept of what does this piece of paper really mean. And what I found out over the course of helping people all these years is there's a big difference between a claim and a plan. You know, people think that, well, it's a winning ticket. I don't even need an attorney, I should just go up there and claim my ticket. And yes, you could do that. Some people think I just need to have an attorney go with me to claim the ticket. And yes you can do that, but if you're winning a substantial amount of money and to me that might be 5, 10 million dollars and up, at least that level. I think there's a lot more things that should go into the plan. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to be splitting this ticket with other family members. It just means... We should be looking at what your life will be like a year from now, okay? Don't look at it right now. Where would you want to be a year from now? Who would you have wanted to help a year from now? Where would you be living a year from now? All these things is what needs to be put into this plan so that it can be done in a method that's helpful to the client because again, someone wins a lot of money, their life has changed. Their family relationships change, their friends change. Things are gonna be different. You can't even say, well, now I can afford the nice country club because you go to that country club and you're gonna find that there's gonna be a lot of people who aren't like you at that country Club. And these people, when they find out anything about you will say, well, I made my money selling businesses and selling property and hard work. I raised cattle, I did farming. I did this, I do that. I earned my money. And all you did was go to the store and give them $2. And now you're supposedly gonna be equal with me? And it causes a lot of problems, a lot anxiety problems. So I think the number one thing for people is when you win a certain dollar amount, and I would say $5 million and above, you really need to take some time and do a plan that will incorporate how to claim the ticket, as well as where you're gonna be a year or two from now with those funds at your disposal.

Timothy Schultz:

And do you ever have anyone that you advise that just doesn't listen? Or that they, have you ever had anyone in that situation where...?

Kurt Panouses:

Yeah, I mean I've had several people in that. And one of the first ones that I had I was working for a law firm and this was back in the in the late 80s. I remember it distinctly because a local gentleman had won I think 5 or 7 million dollars in a lottery. At that time, there wasn't a lot of options for you. You had this money, you had to take the annuity. And, you know, he came, he was referred to me. He knew I had done some work before. So he came in and this was a time period where people were allowed to smoke cigarettes in an office. And so we were in a conference room and he went pacing back and forth and he must have smoked seven cigarettes while I was talking to him, trying to ask him questions to put something together for him. And this was at a time when, you know, I was essentially new at what I was, what I'm doing. And Yeah, so I didn't even know all the questions to ask at that time. Now, it's a whole bunch more questions that I would want to get the answers to. But at that the time he looked at me and said, you don't understand. All weekend, I've been sitting there with the lights on in my house, pacing in my home, not sleeping. I can't do this anymore. I'm just going to Tallahassee right now and claiming this ticket. And he took off and drove up and went there. So people, again, it's new to them. They don't understand the consequences. They don't understand that someone could be helpful to them with the claiming process to keep them from being identified. And that's really, when I joke and say, I'm now calling myself the stealth attorney, it's because people come to me when they don't want to be identified. And so I will help them through that process. That's really what I focus in on because I don't believe anyone should claim the lottery over a million dollars without doing some type of privacy to make sure that they're not being identified going forward.

Timothy Schultz:

Yes, and you specialize in that, which is incredible. Some incredibly high prizes, even some states that you had to claim it publicly where you've found creative workarounds.

Kurt Panouses:

And so you need to work many times with the lottery's office and their rules, but that's the first thing that you need take a look at. And these rules change all the time. These lottery committees from these certain states meet all the time with regulators in the state, senators and congresspeople, and they modify and change their rules. So what was good a year ago may not be good today. So what you need do is when you get that phone call, you need sit down and say, okay, this is the state. Give me about 12 hours, so that I can go into your state laws and look at things. And again, if it's one of those games like Mega Millions, Powerball, Cash for Life, there's another organization called MUSL, M-U-S-L, that also has their own rules and can change. For instance, I just had a phone call from someone the other day who had won a ticket in Michigan call me because I handled a big ticket in Michigan. And he was asking me some questions. And I said, well, you know, how much did you win? He told me it was a little over a million dollars. And I say, well that's great. I go, was it Mega Millions, Powerball? You know, what was it? And he goes, well why does that matter? And I said, well Michigan law says if you win over $10,000 in a state game, you could be anonymous. It's the Powerball, Mega Millions, multi-state games that you have to go through this process to become, to claim anonymously. It's a big difference. $10,000 is the threshold in Michigan, so it doesn't take much.

Timothy Schultz:

Yeah, that is really interesting. And what about these billion dollar jackpots because it seems like increasingly often these jackpats are getting up to be in the United States over a billion. What is the difference? Is the pressure higher for you and for them? Like if they are coming, if you have a client that comes in with a ticket for over a billion or hundreds of millions, Is the pressure, are they different? Is their persona, their feeling, what they're going through different and what about for you as the attorney? Well, you know, obviously

Kurt Panouses:

from their perspective, those clients really have no idea what they're looking at going forward. They just think it's really a whole bunch of money that they can buy whatever they want, help anyone else they want. A lot of them come in and they say, oh, well, here's what we're gonna do. 1/3d's gonna be for me, 1/3rd's going to be for family, and 1/3rd is going to charity. After they start thinking this through, you get them to see actual numbers in front of them with what this money can earn for them and what the tax implications of this money is. You know, it kind of settles them down a little bit and all of a sudden, you know, all those ideas are off the table. They want to control and master these, you know this money and oversee it. I actually get excited for them. I'm happier for them than I am for, obviously for anything else, but. Because to me, it's just another zero or two at the end of the number. It's a number, and it's a zero or a two. It doesn't bother me. The concepts are still the same. The only thing that's different is, I have to take more time to explain to these people what potentially could happen to them if they do something wrong or if they rush on something. In other words, they want to help a family member, great. Let's find out about this family member. Well, how do we do that? Well. We have to reach out and talk to your brother or sister. Where are they located at? How do we get in touch with them? How do we ask them certain questions and get information without telling them, hey, your brother won a billion dollars, okay? You know, because they may not want to communicate that. So trying to find out more and more information about this sibling's life or this niece or nephew's life, so that you can incorporate that into a plan that helps everyone rather than someone saying, why did you give me this money? I'm getting divorced. And then they get into a fight with a sibling that was trying to do something nice for them and wanted to surprise them. So it just slows down the process as far as I'm concerned. And I need to rein them in a little bit to make sure that they understand the pros and cons of doing things a certain way and what the options are, because I think when you win a lot more money, there's more options on the table for planning purposes. As I say to people all the time, I don't personally like people to sign the back of the ticket or to mark the ticket because I want that blank slate. So I could paint whatever picture we need to paint, you know there. And use every tool in my toolbox for that purpose. So it just really, I want them to slow down a little bit more, takes a little more time. Again, there's a lot of anxiety on their part because, you know, until they turn that ticket over to that state lottery, they're not going to get any sleep and it's going to be very difficult. So, you know, from my perspective, I just have to close down my office and have one client for a month or two, basically.

Timothy Schultz:

Yeah, that makes complete sense. And with telling family and that sort of thing, if you win a prize that big, I mean, I imagine that you probably encourage people not to tell their family and people around them, but what do you say and how do people handle that? Because people, they wanna help.

Kurt Panouses:

Yeah, and I think you really have to treat every single situation a little differently because people are different. You need to find out as much as you can about the family relationship. And we always have to remember that these kids in the backseat of a car at one time would always pick on each other and yell at each other, and yell to the parents that he's doing this or she's doing that. You know, it happens. You're siblings. But you also want to help siblings. And so you're relying on a professional who doesn't know anyone to come in to make an assessment. So sometimes I'm almost like a counselor at the same time. So I'm a tax advisor, I'm a counselor, I'm an attorney, I am a CPA, I gotta wear a lot of hats for these people. And try to get as much information to find out where the hot points are for them with what they're trying to do. Again, someone could say, and I give people the option, do you want to spread this major win out over many family members through an entity of some sort with percentages or a group claim with percentages, or do you want to just claim this yourself and then make gifts to people? Understand, though, that you're only able to give out so much money in gifts before there is a gift tax associated with it at 40 percent. So you have an income tax that goes up as high as 37 percent. At the federal level, plus your state tax, which could be another 5 or 10% depending on where you live. So that's 47%. And then if you want to just make gifts to people, you have a little bit of exemption of around $13 million, but after that, you're paying a 40% gift tax. So you have to be careful and you have the right person giving you advice to do the plan. And that's where planning comes in where someone wins over $10-$15 million. It becomes really material who you talk to nad who you're

Timothy Schultz:

going to see. With the gifts, like if you do give gifts, just backing up real quick to someone after you win a major prize, do you suggest that people put a line in the sand and say this is how much I'm going to give you and that's what I'm going to do or just leave it open-ended? And I ask only because I've met several other lottery winners and I have my own experience with when you don't do that, at least for- some people anecdotal stories that I know that some people have come back again and again and again until you learn to put a line in the sand, but have you experienced anything like that with or heard anything like, that with your clients or? Sometimes

Kurt Panouses:

when you know a situation with a family member, you may say, okay, I cannot include you as an owner of the ticket, even for 5%. Don't worry, I'm going to make a gift to you to transfer the money. The gift will be income tax free to you, but you're transferring wealth to someone which allows you to have an exemption. But other than that exemption, once you go over a certain dollar amount, you have to start paying a gift tax. In addition to you paying the income tax. From my perspective, I really don't like clients using their exemption in that manner. I want these clients to use that exemption in transferring wealth to future generations for a generation skipping tax, because there's another brother out there. There's an income tax, there's a gift tax, and then there's generation skipping taxes. So some people. May say, hey, I wanna give money to my niece or nephew and that's skipping a generation. And they can, I have clients that say, I don't care. That's what the money's for. I don't mind paying the tax. As a tax professional, and I talk for all tax professionals the last thing I want or any of us want is for our clients to pay more tax than they need to. Sometimes we set up promissory notes where we actually document a note and we make a transfer of money. And so now the person based on interest rates might only be paying to the individual holder of the note 2 or 3%, whereas if they went out to a bank, they'd have to pay 7% or 8%. And that's okay as long as it's documented. It used to be not too long ago, we could set up promissory notes for clients for 1.2% long term. And so those promissary notes are in place still. So you have family members paying back one. 1-2%, and they're earning, they have the money and they are earning 7-8%. So that's a good thing. So again, here's where you need to bring in that group of people. And I'm fortunate enough to have all these disciplines of being an attorney, CPA, and also with the experience. I don't need all those people in the room. I can talk about all those things.

Timothy Schultz:

If someone watching or listening to this were to win, say, $500 million or a billion tomorrow, what's the first thing they should do?

rd back in: 2021

Timothy Schultz:

After all the taxes are said and done with these major prizes of hundreds of millions and the clients realize the reality of how much they're actually going to receive, what is their reaction to that usually?

Kurt Panouses:

Yeah, not too many people are that happy when they find out that the $500 million is going to turn into $130 million. And then the answer is, well, or the next question is, why am I paying income taxes on 500 when I'm only getting 130? Well, it's 130 net of taxes, you know, but no one's ever happy with that. And to be quite honest with you, I think it's almost like a bait and switch with these lotteries saying, hey, we're going to advertise a billion dollars, $500 million, get everyone to invest into it. But we're only going to have to pay out this much because we're gonna get most of it back in taxes. That's why I applaud some place like California that says, even though we have a state income tax, we're not gonna tax lottery money. You know, I live in Florida. Florida has no state income taxes anyway, but there's several states out there that don't have any income tax. And I tell people that live near border areas, hey, if your state has a tax and the state next door to you doesn't have a border, I'd be buying my tickets from that state next door.

Timothy Schultz:

And if you do go to the store and say, Hey, give me two quick picks and you have a physical ticket. I mean, what happens if it gets lost or stolen? Because if I understand correctly there, you had a recent incident with a stolen potentially stolen ticket or...? It's an ongoing incident,

Kurt Panouses:

but let's let's back up a second here and talk about because I get lots of phone calls from people on a weekly basis about tickets being stolen or... Another thing that happens if you've noticed because there's so much concern, especially at small stores, you know I don't think that the lottery is that concerned about big grocery stores where the all the cameras are on the, on the front desk where they can keep an eye on things. And the grocery store has all these, you know, checks and balances about checking out of a register. I mean if you've ever gone into a grocery store when there's a shift change, You can't buy lottery tickets for five minutes because they got to do all this accounting work. But you know you go to a gas station and there might be one person working the whole, the whole store, the gas station as well as the store inside and they sell lottery tickets. Well, because of some abuses with tickets and you know, scratch off tickets about people pulling them off, maybe checking them in advance, then reselling them somehow. You know, that's a whole story in itself, all those issues of what's out there. I think you were gonna do a story on that. I'm not sure, you know with the individual that had some background in that area, but what's happened now is lotteries are putting machines into these stores. So, so it's like a vending machine. Like you used to get cigarettes in a long time ago in a vendee machine. Now you go in, you put your money in, and you can buy any of the scratch-off tickets or the draw tickets for the lottery for that state. And unfortunately, if you've been looking at these tickets, there's all different shapes and sizes of tickets because all the games are different. I don't know what's going on with the lottery because it never, in the early days, they had like 5 or 6 choices. Now there's 30 choices of tickets, $1 dollar tickets, $2 dollar tickets, $5 dollar tickets. But they're all different sizes and everything like that. And when they get cut. They get cuts on this, they get cut in the middle. And so they don't get cut where the line's supposed to be. And that presents a problem because the person walks out of the store with a ticket that's not part of one ticket and part of another ticket. So what are they supposed to do? Well, you don't take it home and scratch it and say, it's a winner because the top part of the ticket matched the bottom part and so I win. Because the state lottery is going to say, I'm sorry, that's a mutilated ticket. We're not honoring it. But as far as the customer is concerned, they think that they won a million dollars. So if that happens to you, my advice is, take the ticket right back in, give it to the store clerk and say, hey, this ticket's not right. I need my money back or I need to get the next ticket in line because that ticket has to just be scratched out and not used. But once you walk away with that ticket, it's your ticket. And you're gonna have a lot of difficulty getting the money for that ticket even getting reimbursed for it afterwards. So that's number one. Number two, if you have a ticket, again, I'm the person that says, don't sign it, don't mark it, but if the ticket does get lost or stolen, it's a bearer document, people can claim it. So if you know you have winning ticket, make sure that you take a copy of the front and the back of the ticket. You can still hide the ticket, don't leave it in your truck or in your car or something like that. Make sure that it's put in a safe place, take pictures of it, kind of make sure you remember where you bought it at. But my situation right now is, I'm dealing with a state lottery, Ohio, which I always had the highest regard for the Ohio lottery, but this is a problem that I have with him. And basically it was an individual that had sold his house, moved up to, was on his way back up to going to Ohio to live with the family. As he came into the state, you know, he had the money from the sale of the house, wanted to buy a ticket. This $50 ticket looked really cool, so he bought one. Then he bought another one as he was getting gas. And then as he scratched it, he realized that he won $40,000. So that's what he thought. He didn't scratch off the whole thing. And he was a little bit confused because he'd never really played this game before. And when he eventually scratched off the whole thing, it turned out that it was $40 thousand a year for 25 years. So much bigger dollar amount. So that's when he wrote his name on the back. He printed his name on the back of the ticket. He didn't go to Kurt's school about don't put your name on back of the tickets. He wrote his, he printed his name. And then of course, what happens, the ticket is either lost or stolen. He believes that it got stolen by an individual when he parked his car to go, his truck to go into another store later on that week. And so when he retraced the steps, he finds this homeless man saying, hey, I got this ticket and he asked some questions. He confronted the guy and the guy had a girlfriend with him. They apparently exchanged some words and he said, I think you stole the ticket. And he goes, no, you know, I found it. I found that in a garbage. And so long story short, the guy the next day, this homeless person could not be found. The girlfriend that he had, had contacted the police and said, I think this guy who shared the name, because they gave each other names as to who they were, that he had taken the guy and probably killed him to get his ticket back. So the police show up at this guy's house because he had done a police report that he had lost the ticket. And when he did the police report, that they lost the ticket, they investigated him and saw that when he was a younger kid in Ohio, he shot some street signs with a gun, never would tell anyone to do that, but kids do stupid things. And so they immediately, because he served some time for that, they immediately looked at him as being a criminal and were not taking his police report for the lost ticket, had him put his hands up in the air, do you have any guns with you, blah, blah. And so, they ended up releasing him, but they didn't really do a report for lost ticket. So then when they showed up at the house at two o'clock in the morning, they put them through the ringer there. With spraying his dog, you know, with mace to keep the dog from attacking the police. And they were saying, what'd you do with the guy? Which he goes, I didn't do anything with the guy, but the guy has my ticket. So it turns out that the guy shows up the next day, everyone's happy, but this homeless guy still has the ticket. A month later, he then claims the ticket, but when he claimed the ticket apparently he scratched out the name and wrote his name on it. So there's a situation where there's two names on this ticket, but he was the one that tendered it. My client's the one who says he bought it and that he scratched it. And so they're competing interests up there in Ohio. And Ohio says, well, we're treating it as a bearer document, so we want to pay the person that claimed the ticket, which means they're helping out someone that potentially stole a ticket or at least found the ticket if nothing else, certainly didn't buy the ticket. So again, big issues with lost and stolen tickets And you're at the mercy of the state lottery at that point in time, unless you want to file a lawsuit against the state. We may have to file lawsuit with Ohio to get this guy to have an opportunity to win the money off of his scratch-off ticket. So lost and stolen tickets are a big thing. Protect your tickets, put them in a safe place, put a plan together, and then go make your claim. It's the stuff movies are made out of.

Timothy Schultz:

It certainly is and it's real. So with that ticket that you were just speaking about with the $40,000 a year for a number of years, were there security cameras there? Is there any sort of documentation to show where it was purchased? And the second question along with that is where do you suggest people put their ticket? Where is a safe place?

Kurt Panouses:

urchased back in September of: 2024

Timothy Schultz:

Is it more the scratch tickets that are more risky with that sort of thing as far as tracking them or does it not matter?

Kurt Panouses:

Yes, because the, you know, those are tickets that are bought at counters or bought in machines. Sometimes people buy tickets to give to someone for a present. And that event might not be for a week later. And so, again, you never know. These scratch-off tickets, by nature, are very complicated and very difficult. You know, when I get calls from people today and they say they have a winning scratch- off ticket, 40% of the time or 50% of time, when I ask them to send me a copy of the ticket so I can look at it, I have to call them back and say, sorry, it's not a winning ticket. What do you mean? So you just didn't understand the rules. And these crossword games that are out there, like a crossword game could say, the word could be carwash. And they have enough to say wash. And they go, well, wash is a word. I go, yeah, it a word, but it's carwash, so. You know people people buy these tickets because they look fun. They look, they look interesting. And then they don't know how to determine if it's a winning ticket or not. And, and uh, you know the only way to know is to go to the store and have them scratch off the barcode and check it. And even then there's been several times when people had tickets that clearly were not winners. If you looked at the ticket, the four corners of the ticket, there's no way that I saw a match and then they go find out that they won $20 when they went and checked it. And they don't know where the match was. And so then they want to call up and sue the lottery because they say, how many of those tickets have I thrown out and other people have thrown out? So again, there's mistakes made by this gaming company that produces these tickets. These tickets, there are so many of them, and the rules are so different with them, they're confusing. And unless you're an expert in looking at these games or you watch a YouTube channel on how to play this certain game, you may not know it and you may throw out a good ticket or there may be an issue with a winning ticket.

Timothy Schultz:

Well, don't do that for anyone watching or listening if you win. But if you have a winning ticket, then you mentioned to put it in a safe place. Where is a safe place?

Kurt Panouses:

Well, I mean, it's a place that, number one, if you do it in your house, you're not going to forget where you put it. You know, you don't want the too safe of a place. You know, I mean, some place where water can't get to it, don't put it in you refrigerator because it'll get moist, the paper's really thin. You know, put it at a safe, dry place where water can't get to it, where you remember that that's where you've put it, you know, that you're gonna forget about it because that happens a lot. But. You know, when I see these people with scratch-off tickets, I always tell them, scratch them off, you know, determine whether or not you think it's a winner. But before you throw it out, take it to a place and have it checked again, just as a second time. Because sometimes you think you may have won $20 and you actually won $50. Or sometimes you thought it was not a winner and it was a $20 winner or a $10 winner. Always get it checked before you throw it out. And the other thing is, is that if you play a lot of these things, you know, you can't say, hey, one was a winner. And this next stack of losers, I get the tax deduction on, you know, that's not gonna fly with the IRS because they're not gonna say, you had all these losing tickets and you only had one winning ticket, you know? Because people wanna net losses with the gains and that's not going to work. I get calls like that all the time. So just, you know, the losing tickets, just check them and throw them out. You're not going to get a deduction for gambling losses.

Timothy Schultz:

That's interesting because i've heard that as well. If you have losing lottery tickets that you can have some sort of tax wright-off or something, but that's...

Kurt Panouses:

Well, you could, but you better show all the winning tickets that you had with it, not just one winning ticket.

Timothy Schultz:

Is there anything that winners don't see coming that the average major lottery winner has to deal with? You mentioned taxes.

Kurt Panouses:

Understanding why they're taking annuity versus lump sum number one and to get that charted out for them, so that they know. So they actually could see the numbers of what the annuity will do after taxes and what the paying tax on lump sum now and paying dividend rates 15-20% on dividends and interest and actually seeing that out and knowing what their plan is. I had someone not too long ago that won. And it was a younger family. And they were talking about moving to another state soon, as soon as the kids were done with school. And so we looked at what they were earning now as a couple, working for a department store. And then we said, OK, well, this is what they're earning for doing their jobs right now. And this is what the dividends and interest could do to replace that. And they have the money in the bank, so that way they can access it as opposed to keeping an annuity. They initially thought they were just going to take an annuity and live off of that for the next 25, 30 years. But at the end of the 30 years, it was worth nothing. So, I showed them why it was better to take the lump sum and invest the money and what the return is. And that's the other thing. People make mistakes all the time of saying, even with a million dollars that they win. They make these mistakes of going to financial people or certain financial institutions that put them into annuities and mutual funds. You're never gonna get ahead with a mutual fund or annuity. I mean, the money will be secure. There won't be any risk associated with it, but you're never going to get ahead. You want to get a balanced portfolio. You want find a good financial person or group that says, okay, we're gonna invest this money in individual stocks and bonds. And it's gonna be maybe 30% in bonds and 70% in stocks. And the stocks are gonna be technology, it's gonna be medical, it's going to be transportation, it's gotta be defense, they're gonna allocate it over all these different companies and you're gonna own a hundred shares of IBM. And you're going to own a 100 shares of Exxon. And you're go to own 100 shares in Apple and they're going show this, then they'll show you what your dividends are and that's how you're get ahead because you're be able to live on the dividends and interest and watch the portfolio slowly go up because most good S&P 500 funds or, that are based on S&P-500 have generated on average 8% a year. So they pay out 3% and they increase 5%. So that's the better way to go. Someone has to understand that they can't go to their local credit union or their local bank and say, okay, put me in with your financial person. They buy some mutual funds or annuities because you're never gonna get ahead and you're paying for, you're having a lot more expenses than you would if you got a really good financial person. That's probably one of the biggest things that winners don't realize.

Timothy Schultz:

I assume you helped them find the financial person or where do you find...?

Kurt Panouses:

I give them some choices, you know based on where they're living and or other people that I've dealt with in the past Or financial institutions. If, you know, sometimes when you win a really large amount they want the walls. They want the ivory walls. They want the, you know ,the gold that you know, they want to go into a financial...You know now they're gonna have money managers there that, that that oversee other managers. So it's okay because it's a good rate of return/ They have access to things that normal people don't have access too. But many times people want to be with small groups that they can just have quarterly meetings with. I will make myself available for the client to help them, you know, to oversee the quarterly meetings of the financial people. But generally a good financial person that has money for a client that's a million, $2 million dollars, they're going to have quarterly meetings with them at a minimum to say, what's the portfolio done in the last quarter? What's been the benchmark? You know, you want to see what the benchmark is and how they perform with that benchmark. And the benchmark is always that S&P 500 index, basically, because everyone should be using that as the target for generating wealth.

Timothy Schultz:

And have you had anyone that did not listen? That sounds very, very wise. Have you had anyone that just didn't listen and just did some really risky?

Kurt Panouses:

Well, sometimes people will have their own plan for this money. Like I had a client that won a million dollars and he was working, he was a truck driver. And he said, he goes, Kurt, I could ask him, I go, what's the plan with this money right after we claimed it? So I always help them through the claim process and then I go okay, next step is finances. Let's get a good group. Once the money's there, let's talk about it when it's real. And so I said, why don't we talk about the finances, what's your plan? He goes, well, I'm tired of driving trucks for other people because I only get paid X number of dollars per mile. I wanna have my own truck. And he goes, so I want to buy my own brand new truck that I can manage and I can haul and get a trailer. And I said well, that makes sense. The guy's investing in himself. I would have rather him continued on the other way, but if he wants to invest in himself, by all means, do it. Let me see if I can help you in that, if that's what you want to do. It's not like he's buying a boat and a truck and this and that, and then he's gonna only have $300,000 at the end and try to live on that. He's going to invest in himself and he wants to pay off his mortgage and invest in himself. So you do have people like that. But you also have people. They came to you through a referral of someone else. And I always try to honor those referrals. And it's a little bit of an issue to me when I see what's going on and I know that it's not in the client's best interest. So you kind of try to talk about it, you know, on a side note where it's, it's not, cause you don't want to upset the relationship that the client has with a long time friend that's been handling their finances. You know, again, people start investing money in mutual funds and annuities, you know. I'm going to say run from those people technically. Again, if the client happens to be 80 years old they may like the idea of knowing exactly that the money's there They're not worried about growth or income. You know, the children are grown. They don't care about that. They only want a million dollars. Okay, I understand that but some younger person? Now, you want to be, you want have your equities, um, you know live on the equities because that's where you're gonna really make it in your life.

Timothy Schultz:

That seems very wise. Have you had anyone that, you've represented so many different lottery winners, are there any stories out there that are really, to you, any inspiring stories or positive stories, someone that really has done something where you...

Kurt Panouses:

Yeah, you know, I have I have one client in particular and they they do a lot charity wise and when they and they do it annually every year and it's like $100,000 here, you know, constantly giving to the Danny Thomas Hospital up there constantly giving to towers, you know, $100,000 every year. Recently, we had an individual that has a farm-to-table farm where they do all the fresh farming, you know, organic. And you know you can just join this place. It's not like it's, it's not a country club. People can just go there and buy fruit and stuff and vegetables and all that meat. And the person just said, hey I buy my stuff here, I want to get the person a check. And wrote out a check for $100,000. And asked me to deliver it, so I had to go out of my way to find the place and deliver it. And the person goes, what's this for? And I go, I have a client that uses your services and wanted to help out because you were doing something wonderful for the community. You were providing organic, clean vegetables and meat to anyone that wants it. And so you know, they just wanted to make gifts. So, you know, I have clients like that all the time. And sometimes... Sometimes you help them because you make a recommendation. They think, today, hey, I won $100 million or I won $500 million. I want to set up my own foundation. Well, I tell them, setting up your own foundation takes a lot of work. But we could set up a Donor Adviced Fund at a community foundation very easily with just a two-page document. And then it's there, you can have the money transferred over there, invested there, and so it's part of the charity at that point in time. And as your stock portfolio goes up in value, instead of you selling a stock and paying capital gains tax, you can just transfer the stock in kind to the Donor Advised Fund, get immediate income tax deduction, never have to pay capital gains tax, and you can help as many charities as you want with that donor advised funds because we can have checks written anonymously to them. So, you know, it's a great thing for people, donor advised, funds through your community foundations. Very easy to do. You could say, when I'm no longer living, I want my son or daughter to be in charge of this fund and make the recommendations, because I'm going to put $5 million into it. So, helping people like that. Telling people that worked for a living when they won the lottery, and then you ask them about their IRA, and their IRA is $500,000. And you go, okay. Do you need the $500,000? No, I got $100 million in the lottery. Well, let's start donating $100,000 a year to your favorite charity through your IRA. So instead of you paying income taxes on your IRA, you're giving a deduction, you're getting a deduction and transfer it right to the charity. So helping people, putting them in position to make good decisions is kind of like my gig. And so being that stealth attorney, so that people aren't identified, number one, that's my number one function. Then number two is just helping people to make good decisions and to be there part of that lifestyle with them to help them with the process. I get a lot of joy out of that because I feel like, okay, that's my calling. I'm doing something good for society by matching donors with donees. On the sad side, because I'm the one out there that's being identified, even today I got a message from a lady in Connecticut. Was looking for some help because it has some young kids that need to drive to school and they're in the rural area and was hoping that one of my clients would allow for the purchase of a used car for them to be able to travel back and forth. So I get all the sad stories as well. I mean, is it a true story? Is it a scam? I have no idea. I didn't really look into it, but I get those calls as well, so. There's a side of me that's very sad every day, and there's a side of me that's a very happy every day. But I'm just glad I have great clients that do great things. And I'm glad I'm part of that process, and I'm the bridge for those two.

Timothy Schultz:

Yeah, it sounds like they're lucky to have you, and so how do you, I mean, how does that feel when you receive an email or someone wanting money for that sort of thing? Because that happens to a lot of lottery winners, obviously, I've dealt with a lot of that and many other people I've met.

Kurt Panouses:

My clients generally are not known. So, you know, because of that, I'm the person that's been identified. So I get the calls, I get their phone calls. It makes me feel very sad at the same time. But then I say to myself, well, better I get this call than the client get the call. Because, you now, when the clients get the call and they know they have money, it's so easy for them to, here's $5,000, here's $10,000 dollars, you know. They would write the check in a heartbeat. But they would be taken advantage of on a regular basis. So with me, I do my charitable giving that I like to see, but I'm able to funnel that into a different place in my heart and hope that they get taken take care of by some other means if it's a valid, true, true need. We have a much higher power up there that tries to help out for people. And so I leave it up to him.

Timothy Schultz:

Well, I love that, and if you are anonymous, I mean, the majority, if not all, most of your clients have claimed it anonymously. You specialize in this, which is amazing. If you do that, have you heard any, even then, is there still an influx of people asking for money in that sort of thing, or is that sort irrelevant? Is that sort not something that's an issue?

Kurt Panouses:

Well, generally, when you claim it anonymously, you go out of your way to make sure that you surround them with the right people that don't know anything about their situation. Now, there's times when people find out little things about someone, but they don't know the exact nature of it. They can't put two and two together. So they may say, okay, they came into some money. I always tell people to have a story. Have a story that they're ready to tell. Either they sold their business or their uncle died and they came into the money. Don't say anything about lottery. Just say, you know, it's the inheritance I have. No one really bothers people about an inheritance, per se. And sometimes clients, they tell certain professionals and then they run into these professionals or their staff at the grocery store and someone makes a mistake. And that's why you want to surround people with other professionals that really understand their situation and will make sure that they're not identified. I've had situations where I've helped people in the past. The person got to me because a friend told me about them, or told them about me. So it was like someone locally here and they go, oh, you need to go see my friend, Kurt. That's all he does. So they know because they've talked to the person and made the referral to me. So then, you know, I'm at the pool with the person and the person starts talking about the individual. Oh, you did a great job so-and-so. And I go, whoa, whoa. I go I don't talk about that here. There's other ears around here. You know, I don't want anyone else to know anything about the situation. Just because you know that they won, doesn't mean we need to discuss it here. So, yeah, you wanna do the right thing for the clients. That's basically, you know, the job. And you know it's that concierge service that you provide to them and it never stops. And like, you know, one of the sad things that I have going for myself at this point in time is I have a couple of clients that are 200 yards from each other maybe, maybe more than 200 yards, but. You know, they both won a considerable amount of money. Neither one knows the other one exists. They're both from different states and you know they reside someplace together now where they're that... And I know they would be great friends and I know that they would get along great and they'd be able to share the relationship that they have and how they came into these funds and I can't tell them anything, you know. I mean I can't. And it bothers the hell out of me because I know their lives would be better if I brought them together because they'd be happier. Because they'd have someone to share that feeling with. But you can't do it. So it is what it is.

Timothy Schultz:

Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned at the beginning of this interview some people in a country club, I believe, or used that as an example of people not telling people that you have won the lottery, if you've won a major prize. Because even if they might be on the same footing financially, they might look at you differently with perhaps less respect because you haven't earned it.

Kurt Panouses:

Well, whether it's a country club or a yacht club, there's always those people there that ask questions about where are you from? How'd you come into your money? There's nosy people out there that they want to know. And at country clubs or yacht clubs, you actually have to fill out information about your finances for them to even take you in as a member. And so you need to be careful with that stuff, with what you put down as to how you came into the funds or whatever. But people want to know and then they meet you for dinner and they go, where are you from? And, you know, what did you do there? And there's questions and questions and questions and you got to be careful because if they find out it's just lottery money, no matter how well established you are in life and how fortunate, you might've been an attorney, you know might've been me. And so someone's going to say, yeah, you were an attorney, but you won the lottery. You didn't, you didn't really work hard to become a millionaire or something like that. So, you know, it happens to people all the time. And it's unfortunate that we have a society like that, but all I can do is coach and help as much as I can and provide that, you know, a suggestion to clients from time to time. That's why I like to stay in touch with my clients, even the ones that won $100,000. You know, I still wanna call them every once in a while, I'll just ask them how they're doing, what's happening in their lives, and you know. The joy that I always have is when I'm done, and I ask them all the time, could I have done anything different? And they go, absolutely not, and we couldn't have done it without you. We didn't realize how much was involved, and we couldn't have done without you. We never could have answered the questions that you answered for us, or the documentation that you filled out, and we're just so grateful that you came into our lives. So, with me, that's like the best payment I could possibly get, because it's something that I expect, because that's, that's the treatment I want. I want to give clients that treatment. I want to give them that, you know, that feeling. And so to actually hear it from them, you know, when they don't have to, or they could suggest something differently, it's just a great feeling that, hey, I'm doing the right thing for the right reasons.

Timothy Schultz:

Yeah, absolutely. And we are here with Kurt Panouses, the lottery attorney, the stealth, stealth attorney, the Tom Brady of lottery attorneys.

Kurt Panouses:

I'm still waiting for him to call and say, hey, how come you're using my name now? But, uh, no, I mean, he, but you look back at his record, um, in big games and, you know, he was the go-to person. And, uh. I kind of feel myself with, you know, [inaudible], where I'm the go-to person for it, whether someone takes me up on her or not. Um, you know. There are a lot of good attorneys out there, a lot of good professionals out there. Um. But I don't know of anyone that's handled as many lotteries in different states than I have in total. And I'm proud of that.

Timothy Schultz:

Absolutely. Absolutely. And for people that maybe they win the lottery tomorrow, or maybe they already have, and they're looking for some help, where can people find more about you, or where can they contact you?

Kurt Panouses:

-: 3733

Timothy Schultz:

Absolutely, that is wonderful. And that has to be a perk of the job when people do come in and they contact you and they've won a major, major prize. What are they feeling? What are they going through? Obviously they're excited, but...

Kurt Panouses:

Yeah, many of them don't want to tell me anything. They just call me up and a lot of them have a lot of friends and I'm calling for a friend, you know, which is kind of funny. But, you know, you just want to be as honest as you can with them and say, you know I need to know enough about the situation and for me, I tell them I need to see a copy of the ticket. I want to verify that I'm dealing with a winner because I don't want to spend my time. I don't mind spending time, but I don't wanna spend time just wasting it. Tell me, prove to me that you have a winning ticket and then I could say, okay, you have winning ticket in Michigan, you have win ticket in Illinois, you have wining ticket in Florida, you have the winning ticket, you know, in Washington, wherever it is, Texas. You have a wining ticket. I can look at those laws, I can get back to you within 12 hours, but this is how I work and this is what we typically do, but let me look at your state laws, look at your claim forms because there's a lot of information out there you can get to really help in a short period of time and kind of start putting together the plan real quickly. And then you can talk to the client, get all the details and say okay, this is what we need to do now. Someone calls me in Florida on Monday at noontime, I can have them up in Tallahassee by Friday, collecting, you know, making the claim within a short period of time. I don't have to worry about travel, just get in the car and drive there. And again, for smaller dollar amounts, under $5 million, I can easily do that. Someone wins a lot more money, then we gotta slow down, talk about it, and make a plan that, you know, takes a little bit more time to put together.

Timothy Schultz:

And what's the average amount of time if you won a jackpot of hundreds of millions?

Kurt Panouses:

Well, I would like to have 2 weeks of daily conversations to know what we're doing and why we're doing it. And to reach out to people that we need to reach out to get a really good handle on the situation. Again, there's no do-overs. It's not like you can call a time out in the middle of it and say, I want to redo this. So, you need two to three weeks to plan something out at a major level. And some of this might take more than that, depending on, you know, again. When you get closer to the end of the year, like if I have someone that calls me up in October, November, I'm gonna say, well, let's wait to see what the tax rates are going to be next year because if we claim it in January as opposed to December, that could be a big difference in income taxes. 3, 4%, that's a big difference. So, especially when I get clients that call up and go, what do you charge? And you say, Well. All the professionals [inaudible] being used, not only me, but other people that we may use, it might be 1 or 2%, depending on what you're trying to do. That's not my fee, that's everyone's fee. And then they go, oh, that's way too much. Or some of your viewers say that's too much, so a 3% difference in income tax rates waiting a month should be something that someone should embrace very easily.

Timothy Schultz:

And 3% is a heck of a lot of money when you're talking about a jackpot that high. So we are here with Kurt Panouses. We will put a link to his website in the show notes if you're listening to this or in the description if you are watching this on YouTube. I also, I understand he is also on TikTok. We are running kind of short on time, but is there anything else that you wanted to say today that I didn't ask or don't know enough to ask or that you just want to say?

Kurt Panouses:

You know, no, I think, unfortunately, the state lotteries have gotten very confusing for people, especially the scratch-off games. So, you know, I caution people on those scratch-offs. The other thing I've noticed with scratch-offs, to be honest with you, is the bigger dollar amounts that are won are usually at stores where there are, there are checks and balances. I don't see the big lottery tickets, scratch-off tickets at these small mom-and-pop stores. You know in the rural area. And maybe they say well, we don't sell enough tickets there. So that's probably not the place where you're going to go to buy a ticket, you know. Buy a ticket, I always tell people if you're gonna buy a scratch-off ticket, go to one of the areas in town that might not be the most wealthiest area that has a lot of traffic. That's probably the best place to buy a ticket like that. If if if we're trying to earmark the best place to buy a giant winning ticket, that would be the place that I would recommend. You know, there's no, no theory behind that. It's just when you look at the record. That's where they happen at. So, you know, so I just tell people, they're very confusing scratch-offs. You know, but they're a much higher possibility of winning than the 300 million to 1 on the Mega Millions or Powerball. And then your state lottery jackpots are much better deal than Mega Million and Powerball as well because it's only 200 million to 1 basically, just the number of the number of choices that you have. So, you know, just good luck to everyone and, and, uh, you know, hopefully I'll get a call from someone that says, Hey, I saw you on Tim show and, you look like you're a trustworthy person. And, and uh, and I hope that I am. And I hope my clients are happy with the service that I provide them. So, uh it's a lot of fun. I really enjoy doing this work. Something that I never thought I would be doing when I went to law school. But over the course of time of dealing with wills, trusts and estates and people dying and inheritances and taxes and wealth transfers, it was just a natural at a certain point in my career. So between the CPA background and the licensing and the law background and that and doing the estate planning, it was a just a fit and I found myself finding it to be very enjoyable. A lot of times I feel like I won, just because of the clients I meet and what they do with their lives and how I'm able to help them make life better for not only them, but also for their family members and friends and their communities. So I kind of feel well connected that I'm helping people, not only the clients, but also other people that their lives touch. And so it's just a lot of fun to be involved with them.

Timothy Schultz:

Well, I love it. And I'm like a fly on the wall just listening to you here because you've represented so many major winners who have claimed anonymously and all kinds of winners. But it's really fantastic and I'm so excited and I love what you're doing. So thank you so much for coming back onto this show today and for sharing your insights. You're welcome. Thank you.