Massachusetts $25 million scratch-off winner uses a trust to stay anonymous

A $25 million Massachusetts scratch ticket prize was claimed Thursday by Carrow Road Trust of Peabody, represented by trustee Donald MacDonald, the Massachusetts State Lottery said. The person behind the trust was not named.

The prize came from the $50 $25,000,000 Mega Money game, and the trust took a one-time lump sum payment of $16,250,000 before taxes instead of the annuity. The ticket was bought at a 7-Eleven at 78 Franklin St. in Quincy, and the store collects a $50,000 bonus.

Grand-prize odds on the game are 1 in 8,400,000. Three grand-prize tickets were printed, two have been claimed, and our tracker still shows one $25 million ticket outstanding. The game launched May 13, 2025 and about 44.7% of the printed tickets have been sold.

Massachusetts publishes winners names, so winners use trusts instead

Massachusetts is a state that doesn't allow anonymous claims. A trust is the workaround, and it is a legal one the lottery describes openly. A trustee turns in the ticket, receives the check, and moves the money into an account for the beneficiary.

"Prizes can be claimed by a trust or other legal entities that fulfill the definition of a legal person," Massachusetts State Lottery Executive Director Mark William Bracken told MassLive. "The identity of the trustee or legal representative is made public. Over the last several years, we have seen an increase in the number of large prizes claimed by trusts."

So the trustee's name goes on the record and the winner's does not. A New York player used the same idea when an LLC claimed a $10 million scratch-off there. The rules differ by state, and what each one allows is worth checking before claiming anything.

65 cents on the dollar on the annuity for the lump sum

The $25 million headline was an annuity figure, and $16,250,000 is what it is actually worth as a lump sum today. That is 65%, and it is a far better ratio than the lump sum that draw games are paying.

Massachusetts taxes income at a flat 5%, and a 4% surtax applies above $1 million, so a prize this size faces 9% at the state level on top of federal tax. Our lottery tax calculator runs the rest.

The state with the highest payouts in the country

$25,000,000 Mega Money returns 83.9% of sales as prizes and wins on one ticket in 4.10. It rates 68.5 on our ValueScore™, held back by the run being nearly half sold with one grand prize left.

Even so, 83.9% is ordinary for Massachusetts. Its 119 games average 77.8%, the highest of the 39 states we can rank and more than seven points above the 70.0% national average. Illinois is second at 74.7%. Two Massachusetts $10 tickets sit among the six highest-paying games in the country.

This is the second-largest Massachusetts prize claimed this year. The largest was the $29.71 million Megabucks jackpot sold in Holyoke. Current standings for the state are on the Massachusetts page, and the national list is our state payout ranking.

Sources

MassLive: Winner claims $25M lottery ticket as 2nd-largest Mass. prize of year