Senator warns current laws can lead to having "a target on your back"
By Kate Northrop
A bill that would allow some lottery winners in Pennsylvania to claim prizes anonymously passed unanimously in the Senate.
On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Senate approved a bill that would allow lottery winners of prizes $100,000 and above to remain anonymous.
Senator Lisa Baker, the bill's sponsor, said Senate Bill 373 will provide protection for players' winnings, families, and identities.
"The Pennsylvania Lottery annually generates more than $1 billion for seniors in our state and is the only state lottery that designates all proceeds to programs benefiting older residents," Baker said. "However, advances in technology have provided scammers with a major resource to target lottery winners, especially older Pennsylvanians, with identity theft and fraud."
Should the bill become law, players claiming prizes that are at least six figures will be able to choose whether they'd like to publicly disclose their name or keep it hidden. The winner's town and county of residence, however, would remain public information under the Right-to-Know law.
"Half of all states already provide winners full or partial anonymity," Baker argued. "While transparency in Pennsylvania Lottery operations is essential, I believe it is important to protect lottery winners' privacy and shield them from those who may be looking to exploit their good fortune. It is time for Pennsylvania to join in protecting our lottery prizewinners."
Baker's bill was reintroduced from the last legislative session when it was sponsored by Senator John Yudichak. Her motivation for driving the piece of legislation forward stems from one of her friend's personal experiences with winning a $100,000 prize from a scratch-off game.
"She was harassed and stalked by people coming after her even to the point where her parents and grandparents were contacted trying to scam her out of money," Baker related. "If we can help protect someone's privacy without impacting transparency, I think this is the way to go."
Currently, the Pennsylvania Lottery releases the first name and first initial of last names of individual prize winners, along with their municipality and country of residence.
"We don't have to disclose to the public if you win at the horse races, that's your personal income," she added.
Seasoned players with knowledge of state anonymity laws might point out that winners can already hide their identity in Pennsylvania by claiming their prize under a trust, but Baker contends that this technicality is not obvious enough.
"A lot of lottery winners maybe don't have the wherewithal or want to go through the mechanism of creating a blind trust," Baker elaborated.
Additionally, not every player has an attorney or financial advisor on-hand to rely on in the claims process, nor do some players know to seek such professional services.
There is another similar bill moving through the House, sponsored by State Representative Patrick Harkins, which argues for more protections for lottery winners.
"It just seems like a lot of people can be preyed upon," Harkins said.
He also spoke in defense of player anonymity while citing friends' experiences.
"She was very concerned that the public would know after she filled out the paperwork," the State Representative said of a particular case.
Baker and Harkins agree on the notion that winner anonymity does not hurt the state lottery in any way.
"I've heard from lottery officials who have said they like it the way it is right now because it shows the public that there are winners," Harkins explained.
But the two argue that a lottery can be transparent without revealing personal details and putting winners' safety at risk.
"They verify the ticket, they verify the information," Baker said. "I don't think the bill is going to hurt the lottery or question the transparency."
Having passed by a vote of 45-0, Baker's bill is moving on to the House for consideration, where Harkins said he expects to see bipartisan support and possibly a compromise.
Lottery Post maintains a state-by-state list of lottery privacy laws throughout the United States and several other countries.
This is exciting news. This momentum by states towards anonymity, understandably, slowed down to nothing during covid. Time to restart that trend.
Job well done Pennsylvania.
Such a rarity, politicians listening to their constituents.
I get the transparency argument. The little information supplied about where ticket was bought should suffice. Unfortunately times have changed so much it can be outright dangerous/deadly for lottery winners. Even small lottery winners like the guy in GA who I think won around $400K killed for his money. An old man here cashed in his little win in Louisville and killed for the money once he left the store. Sad.
Wonder if the billionaire winner in CA who loves to buy mansions has a security detail. He is flaunting his wealth too much and name and face plastered all over the place. His problem not mine.
Lotteries need to be concerned about their own employees vs publicly identifying lottery winners. I am sure Tipton was not the only inside job.
The one that sticks out with me is the story about the scratch pack in Indiana.
Lottery security knew which store a million dollar scratch winner was being sent to and tipped off a friend.
That friend went in and bought the whole pack and won the million.
It got exposed when they argued about the cut.
The story was posted on LP years ago.
There are others. They will happen with or without anonymity.
I missed the story about the Indiana scratch off . I've always said they know exactly where these winning scratch go. They are not just thrown out there as some would believe. My guess this is an ongoing thing since I still read unbelievable stories of how people hit multiple big jackpot scratch offs within days.
We need this in NY!
Same here in TN.....
..Very poor choice not to have that ruling on the books.
I can see the lotteries being concerned about identifying winners to develop a good reputation when it was a new thing. But at this point, modern lotteries have been around for decades, and the transparency argument is outdated.
Personally l don't want to be anonymous but depends on my mood that day and the jackpot amount maybe maybe not. However l think all anonymous laws should expire after Ten Years this will at least give the public sense of fairness :). We live in a strange World . Remember the Airline that installed security doors to the <snip>pit and the Pilot was the one that committed Suicide so we need to have some Open Security too. So Ten years is good enough to put your S...together .
You want to be famous. Most people prefer safety. You are aware of winners being harmed for even relatively small amounts? It has nothing to do with open security and having any anonymity law expiring after 10 years makes zero sense. What extra level of security would that show ten years later?
I'm genuinely curious why you wouldn't want to remain anonymous. Are there people in your life that you want to impress?