LANSING, Mich. — You've heard the touching stories: a waitress, retiree or unemployed worker hits the jackpot and wins the state lottery.
Under a bill approved by the Michigan House Regulatory Reform committee on a 13-2 vote Wednesday, those stories would probably disappear because all lottery winners would be able to remain anonymous.
The bill would prohibit the state lottery office from disclosing information about an individual who won any lottery prize unless that winner authorizes the release of information. That option for anonymity exists now for people who win more than $10,000, but not for people who win the Mega Millions or Powerball prizes.
Currently six states — Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and South Carolina — allow lottery winners to remain anonymous. And four more — Colorado, Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts — allow anonymity if the winners claim their winnings through a trust.
"Lottery winnings, while for many is a major plus in their live, it can be a major negative at times," said state Rep. Ray Franz, R-Onekama. "It costs friendships. It costs family relationships. It costs jobs. I thought it should be an option that's available."
The Lottery Commission is against the bill because they say it will hamper the agency's ability to generate publicity, and ultimately, sales of lottery tickets. A decline in lottery sales would reduce revenues to the school aid fund, the commission said. The fund received $742.8 million from lottery revenues in the last fiscal year.
Of the 87 lottery winners of more than $50,000 in 2014, 69% decided to remain anonymous, said Jeff Holyfield, spokesman for the Lottery Commission. Only one Michigan resident won a Mega Millions pot of $66 million last year and her name was made public.
"We look at it as a step backward in terms of openness and transparency," Holyfield said.
The bill — HB 4433 — now moves to the full House for consideration.
Michigan can be #7 . The Lottery Commission is so self serving and not looking out for winners best interest.
Good news.
Actually this would spur me on to play MM and PB. I do not now because I do not want my name made public.
While other states consider bills for winners to remain anonymous, my state wants to reveal MORE personal info of winners such as current street address, date of birth, and social security number. They already have to have your name and picture, isn't that enough?
Well, it is the "show me state".
It would be nice if you get to make the decision. A lot of us don't want to be identified by the lottery. I know i don't.
I hope this bill passes and it encourages more states to look into giving the option of anonymity to their lottery winners as well.
Give the people the option to choose what they want. Anonymity is the only smart way to go. If you win and want publicity, it's up to you to go out there and make an ass of yourself but please, don't take us all down with you.
Good for Michigan !
I just got back from Delaware, not a bad ride once you get past NJ 42/ I 295 construction zone.
That is one of the reasons I don't play games with large jackpots, my other reasons are well known here, so I don't need to mention them.
---"We look at it as a step backward in terms of openness and transparency," Holyfield said.
They are not interested in openness and transparency. Somewhere along the line the minimum rollover on the classic 47 game changed from $100,000 to $50,000 and there never was any announcement on the web site that it was going to happen.
They also changed the web site and either took a whole lot of information off of it or made it a lot harder to access.
Further, they don't clearly post the liability limits for each draw game on the official Michigan lottery website!
They are not interested in openness and transparency. They should stop trying to slip stuff by us and stop their specious arguments and allow anonymity for ALL draw games in Michigan!
I would also like to point out to the people that didn't notice that MSL made absolutely no argument of a sales drop after they enacted anonymity on the games back in 1988.
They don't have data on a sales drop because there wasn't any!!
Cut the B*llsh!t and pass the bill!!!
I always love it when they try to claim openness and transparency in the hopes that there are enough gullible idiots around who would actually buy that argument. It's about money, and mandatory publicity provides them with an endless supply of free advertising.
LOVE THOSE Thoroughbreds. PLAY MEGAMILLIONS ONLY. THATS BECAUSE IT'S EASIER TO FOLLOW THE MEGA BALL THAN THE POWERBALL. AFTERALL U ONLY HAVE 15 ,MEGA BALLS TO CHOOSE
I wonder how this bill will affect $1 million winners like Amanda Clayton who won her prize on televised lottery game show. And what about those who continue collecting public assistance after a big win; who will know when they claimed anonymously?
The MSL asserts that sales will fall due to a lack of transparency? Where are the figures for a plummet in sales when the games went with no publicity options in 1988/1989?
I have not seen any.
The MSL asserts they want greater transparency yet, back in 2002, MSL switched to computer RNG drawings and they stopped televising the drawings for many games. I have yet to see a 'live' computer RNG drawing televised on the nightly lottery spot. All they do now is basically say here, here are a bunch of numbers some mysterious computer came up with somewhere at sometime which, as far as you know, may or may not have been today. In fact, we could have just made up these numbers and you would never know because we don't televise the 'RNG draws' ever.
We claimed to switch to RNGs to make the drawings cheaper but we still use balls for the pick 3 and pick 4 draws and we televise those actual draws.
Even if we did televise the RNG draws you could never tell if there actually was an RNG picking the numbers or if we just programed the computer to flash up any numbers we want it to flash up.
Hello, thank you for calling, we are the MSL and transparency is very important to us. Please stay on the line while we abuse and exploit you further and thank you for wasting your time and money on our "transparent" RNG draws...
I don't think people understand what lottery anonymity means because I keep seeing these points brought up which are ridiculous. The general public not being privy to a winner's name, is completely different from the government not knowing who won a taxable amount of money.
Guess what, people who win in states that allow for anonymity still have to pay federal and state taxes. The government knows who they are. Publicity didn't stop bilkers from getting government assistance even when their actions go viral. As despicable and immoral as it was, it wasn't illegal. That idiot Fink didn't stop receiving food stamps even after a reporter showed up at his door wanting to know why he was still using food stamps when he'd won over $1M. Publicity did nothing except force lawmakers to change the law to prevent situations like that from re-occurring.
Unless MUSL starts paying winners in cash, the fears of people bilking the system if their identities aren't publicized isn't a good one. They're publicized now and the system was still bilked. That's obviously not a good solution. It did absolutely nothing to dissuade them. If the law allows people to collect food stamps even when they're millionaires, there will always be someone who will take advantage of it. The publicity factor is immaterial.