By Marty Granoff

Referring lottery winners to purchasers of lottery payments can be like winning the lottery yourself.

I

n 1992 a couple won slightly over $6 million in the New Jersey State Lottery with their prize payable over 20 installments. Soon thereafter, they separated (it’s a shame, but this seems to happen often) and instructed the Lottery to issue each of them one-half of the yearly total so each would receive their own future annual checks.

Near the end of 1994, our organization acquired a prospecting list of financial consultants in New Jersey and called each listed company and individual to introduce ourselves and to fax them a Granoff Enterprises summary. One of these calls was to an insurance agent who happened to know the above New Jersey winners. The husband happened to be in need of lump-sum cash for a business venture he was undertaking and to pay off some debts. The agent arranged a conference call involving the agent, the husband, and me.

The husband decided to sell us his next 10 payments of $150,000 each and retain his last seven payments. Several

years later he decided to sell the balance of his payments. While we were working on the first transaction, we contacted his former wife and introduced ourselves. She soon decided to sell us $50,000 a year of each of her next ten $150,000 payments to acquire a home and business. Shortly after this assignment was completed, she asked us to acquire the $50,000 portion of each of her seven remaining $150,000 payments. This money, she said, was to be used to acquire a home for her mother. What she had done up to this point was get two nice lump-sum checks while still receiving $100,000 per year from the lottery.

Six months later we heard from her again. She wanted to sell all her future remaining $100,000 per year payments. She was getting remarried, and she and her future husband wanted to buy a business. Before commencing this transaction, she decided to reduce the amount and number of payments she was selling us, but over the next several years, she ended up selling us the balance in two

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