In many American states, lottery winners must do a bit of publicity work before they can plop down some cash for their own water park or go on a decades-long shopping spree.
By law, many must have their names publicised or do mandatory news conferences - a convention that serves to both silence whispers that the lottery system is fixed and to convince other would-be ticket-buyers that "this, too, could be you". But the publicity that comes with a person's newfound and sudden wealth can turn a lottery winner into a target. Perhaps with that in mind, police have beefed up patrols around the home of Mavis Wanczyk.
On Thursday Wanczyk was a hospital worker. On Friday, she became the winner of the largest undivided lottery jackpot in North American history - some US$758.7 million. Wanczyk took a lump-sum payment of US$480 million, leaving her US$336 million after taxes. She is no longer a hospital worker.
Officer Michael Wilk, a spokesman for Chicopee police, said that a police car is parked in Wanczyk's driveway. "We want her to know we're there if she needs us."
Wilk said that neighbours reported people hanging around "knocking on doors, asking people where she lives. We're not going to tolerate her being harassed or bothered".