New Bill Says Texas Lottery Winners Can Remain Anonymous

If you won the lottery, you might think you’d want to tell everyone you meet about your life-changing and unbelievably exciting win, but there are plenty of reasons why lottery winners wish to remain anonymous. The harshness of social media and prevalence of people who want to prey on winners could make even the biggest extrovert shy away from the attention of a major win.

As KCCI wrote in 2016, “Only six states in the United States allow winners to remain anonymous: Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and South Carolina.” But soon, Texas might be added to that list.

KSAT reports that a new bill passed through the House of Representatives that will allow lottery winners to remain shielded from the public eye. Of course, they will still have to have transparency when it comes to paying taxes, but their names and information will not be released to the public if the bill continues to pass.

Those who disapprove of the bill say that it will encourage more skepticism when it comes to the doings of the Texas Lottery Commission, and it may even hurt ticket sales since players will no longer see relatable winners who prove that the games can be won.