New Minnesota Law Gives Privacy to Big Lottery Winners
A new Minnesota law allows certain lottery winners to not have any private information made public.
Under current Minnesota law it is required that the Minnesota State Lottery publish a winner's name, city of residence, prize amount and where the ticket was bought, this includes scratch-off tickets, and winners of multistate lotteries like Powerball and Mega Millions.
The new law, SF 151, says that lottery winners that win a prize valued at over $10,000 will be able to remain anonymous, unless the winner provides written consent for the Minnesota State Lottery to release the information. The same law would apply to winners of second chance drawings.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has signed the bill into law after it passed the House with a 131-0 vote and 66-0 vote by the Senate late in April. The new law will go into effect on September, 1st, 2021.
One of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn said, "In today’s day and age if a bad actor were to seek out a lottery winner in order to do them harm, it’s even easier to locate them and their contact information online." Kotyza-Witthuhn says that lottery winners across the United States have the victims of targeted phishing schemes, robbed, and even murdered in rare cases.
Executive director of the Minnesota State Lottery, Adam Prock said, "The lottery works closely with all winners on a case-by-case basis to ensure their needs are met, including winners who choose to maintain a very low profile."