NASHVILLE – An effort to conceal the names of Tennessee Lottery winners failed today on a 4-2 vote in the Senate State and Local Government Committee after a lottery official and open-government advocates warned it would undermine players’ trust in the games.
Only two members of the panel, including sponsor Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, voted for the measure. It would have allowed winners to opt in to having their names and hometowns disclosed.
Currently, Tennessee Lottery Corp. officials don’t release the names of large winners if they don’t wish them to be disclosed. But because the Lottery Corp. is under the state’s Open Records Act, news organizations can still request and obtain the name, hometown and state of winners, who can win hundreds of millions of dollars.
Other information such as age and street address are kept confidential under current law.
Bowling said the issue was brought to her attention by an unnamed constituent and she agreed there was a “need for some protection for people who win the lottery.”