Bill passes in the House, moves to the Senate
By Kate Northrop
Florida lawmakers introduced a new bill that could grant lottery winners of $250,000 or more a three-month period of anonymity before their identity is revealed to the public.
A bill granting temporary anonymity to lottery winners of big prizes passed Wednesday in the House by a vote of 117 to 1. Now the measure heads to the Senate, but with little time left in the current legislative session, it is unlikely that it will become law.
Bill HB 1395 would create a temporary exemption from public records for the names of lottery winners who win prizes valued over $250,000 for 90 days from the date the prize is claimed, unless the winner consents to the release of their name. After the three-month period is up, the winner's name would no longer be confidential and exempt.
The bill is sponsored by House Representative Tracie Davis, who argues that the safety of winners is jeopardized once their name is released in conjunction with their big win.
"At some point, we would love to win a big lottery prize, right?" Davis related to the House. "But, unfortunately, for some people that dream becomes a nightmare. These winners endure all types of scams, harassment, and even some of them loss of life."
Current Florida law allows the names of winners to be released by the Florida Lottery for transparency and marketing purposes. Additionally, the Lottery may publish winners' cities of residence, the games won, prize amounts, and where winning tickets were purchased.
"Persons who win valuable lottery prizes have been the targets of violent and nonviolent criminal acts based upon publicly available identifying information," the bill reads. "For this reason, the Legislature finds that it is a public necessity to temporarily maintain the confidential and exempt status of such information. The Legislature finds that the harm that may result from the release of the name of a winner of a lottery prize valued at $250,000 or more outweighs the public benefit that may be derived from the disclosure of the information."
$250,000 is the prize amount that requires a player to claim their winnings through the Lottery's headquarters in Tallahassee, either in-person, via a drop box, or by mail.
While the bill passed with flying colors in the House, it is still a longshot for it to become law before the legislation session concludes in just a little less than two weeks. The Senate must next vote on the bill, after which the Governor must sign it into law should it pass again.
"Persons who win valuable lottery prizes have been the targets of violent and nonviolent criminal acts based upon publicly available identifying information,"
But its only going to be put off for 3 months if it passes?
Sounds to be like you have a 3 month window to fake your death.
Stupid. Either do or don't. Don't be half a##ed about it, Florida.
This bill is an affront to the memory of Abraham Lee Shakespeare.
Good for you FLORIDA !!! At least it is a start in the right direction to protect it's (Big)winning players.
Enough time to change addresses, phone numbers, put social media accounts on hold etc..
At least to get the heck out of dodge if they choose to do so
Kind of STUPID if you ask me. Why do Partial?
Do complete anonymity and save a Life !
This house and Senate needs to get a complete life, why would you want to do this
Half-a$$ed?
I agree. Useless. Not everyone wants to flee and move away from family, friends, etc. which seems to be the alleged justification. Your name will still be public and you can easily be found after 3 months.
"$250,000 is the prize amount that requires a player to claim their winnings through the Lottery's headquarters in Tallahassee, either in-person, via a drop box, or by mail."
Except if you win the $1,000,000 second prize in either Powerball or Mega Millions. Those can be claimed at a Florida Lottery district office. Why, I do not know...
Luckily, I'm not close to my family so I'd gladly just disappear. But I agree with you, most don't want to give up their whole family, but many of us (me included) have at least one family member who will do anything for money. Can you imagine a meth addict cousin who just read in the paper that you won a million bucks? Meth makes you so stupid, he could easily break into the house and kill his cousin thinking that all the money is stacked up in the spare bedroom for the taking.
I agree. The 3 month delay does not help in any situation.
Claim thru a trust.
So tired of the ' anti ' transparency of the public lottery system.
If three months is enough to complete a trust, then so be it.
The lottery salivates though every time public outrage occurs in support of anonymity.
Pocket all of it and tell the public... yeah..someone won. A fool and their money ...
No. There are no documented instances of a trust being successfully used in Florida. There was an instance of a llc being used and the name of the registered agent was released. See the summary I created pinned to the Jackpot topics.
As above, it's already possible to claim anonymously in FL. Not having the lottery release anybody's name would be a nice option but there are a lot of good reasons to claim as some legal entity instead of under your own name.