Social Security numbers, financial data compromised in multi-state breach
By Kate Northrop
A data breach in a lottery technology supplier's internal system last year exposed sensitive information of over 100,000 individuals, including social security numbers.
Thousands of people across several states had their data exposed after Brightstar, a leading lottery technology company, was hit with a breach in November 2024.
On Oct. 3, Brightstar, formerly IGT, alerted Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha in a letter that "an unauthorized third party gained access to certain of its internal corporate systems." The data security breach was discovered on Nov. 17, 2024, and it was immediately reported to law enforcement and regulatory authorities, the letter reads.
The company was required by law to conduct a "detailed review of impacted data to determine what personal information was involved" in the breach, Brightstar Associate General Counsel Macaire Piscione wrote in the letter.
On Aug. 21, 2025, Brightstar found that the affected data was located across multiple servers in several jurisdictions, affecting individuals in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, California, and Oklahoma.
6,354 Rhode Island residents, nearly 1,500 Massachusetts residents, and over 550 Connecticut residents were impacted by the event. Most of those impacted by the breach were current and former employees, Brightstar spokesman Mike DeAngelis told Rhode Island Current.
According to Piscione's letter, the compromised data included names, dates of birth, contact information, government identification documents and numbers such as driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers, tax identifiers, financial account information, health data, and possibly more.
To compensate, Brightstar is providing affected individuals with two free years of credit monitoring, fraud detection, and dark web monitoring. State law requires that companies must report data breaches no more than 45 calendar days after their confirmation.
The company is not aware of any misuse of personal information, DeAngelis said.
Brightstar said it is continuing to monitor its systems and has introduced "additional measures to further enhance its security defenses."
2024 we just now hearing about it, shucks wonder if this happened in GA or TX
Wow, that really sucks, I hope they find the culprits.
Data breaches happen more than we know. 25 of the biggest.
https://www.upguard.com/blog/biggest-data-breaches-us
Another example of the identity verification process being hacked, just like the Tea app that was recently hacked, and many others.
In my opinion it's because securing uploads like identity photos can be a challenge, and these companies don't put in the effort or cost required to do it. It is enticingly simple to setup a simple cloud service and do "security by obscurity" — meaning the files are not actually secured (locked down), but instead they rely upon people not finding them because you'd have to guess the URL to find them.
It costs money in developer time as well as technology costs (likely ongoing monthly costs) to do proper security, and with all of the big apps you use there are probably several companies involved behind the scenes doing various pieces of the app, such as the interface, the database, the identity verification, the support features, etc. If just one of them does not have proper security it can bring the whole thing down. And that is apparently what happened here.
Just happened to click on a greyed out area of the Kentucky lottery website. Said 18 people who won a trip in 2017 & 2018 Wheel of Fortune scratch tickets were possibly affected.
Starting my journey with the VA (28 years too late) was griping all the security steps one has to take, through a private vendor, after reading this well worth it.
Historically don't pay much attention to companies that I have small investments in, and sure enough IGT now Brightstar.
Mega Millions Price hike: In April 2025, the price of a Mega Millions ticket more than doubled, increasing from $2 to $5. This price jump was not well-received by many customers, leading them to stop playing. While the overall dollar intake and lottery profits have increased in some areas, the number of tickets sold has dropped significantly.
The sharp downward trend, according to Mass Lottery Executive Director Mark William Bracken, can be traced directly to the size — or rather the lack thereof — of the jackpots made available for players over the last year".
•lack of participation is also an important factor to make the jackpot grow. This type of game requires the widest participation. Higher ticket price has turned off a lot of people. it's chump change to play the game for fun. 5 bucks are bit too much to play the incredible odds. it also cuts down the chances to win the jackpot (one can buy 5 numbers with 10 bucks versus 2 numbers for 10 bucks (ouch).
•greed makes Mega Millions directors blind. Why don't they reduce the amount of money that they tax the jackpot? like reduce the rate down to 40% instead of 60%. then They should save the money, and add it back to jackpot when the jackpot is low to make it grow faster.
•Lottery Director: The average yearly pay is around $173,241.
Very good points. Didn't 'they' say the jackpots would grow faster? They don't.
Also you mentioned they should reduce the tax rate, that's on the IRS not the lottery. As far as I could tell a couple of years ago there is no lottery lobbyist group to help on that. Just recently the IRS finally nudged up the taxable rate from $1200 to $2K; several Congress folks wanted it to $5K on slot machine wins.
My friend scanned his ticket @ home...$100 winner. Lady @ store tried slight of hand but I wasn't there to witness it. Handed him a $5 ticket---not asked for and FIVE DOLLARS. Corrected her and gave the $95 owed. This was yesterday.
It seems these things that are supposed to make our lives more convenient and better come along with a buncha problems.......
there're three taxes on the jackpot winning:
1-first cut is the lottery organizers' cut. it's about 60% of the jackpot.
2-second cut is the Uncle Sam tax cut, it's around 37% on the amount left (after the lottery organizers got their 60% cut.
3-third cut is the state tax
4-fourth cut is the city tax like NYC, NY