A lottery winner was killed the day after his scratch-off ticket won, prompting questions about the need to protect the privacy and identity of these often very highly publicized lottery winners.
Lottery winner Urooj Khan of Chicago posed with his winning lottery ticket in this undated image. The Cook County medical examiner said on Monday that Khan was killed via cyanide poisoning on July 20, 2012, one day after he collected nearly $425,000 in lottery winnings.
Illinois Lottery / AP Photo
EnlargeThe privacy rights of lottery winners are receiving new scrutiny after the recent poisoning of lottery winner Urooj Khan in Chicago, who appears to have been killed the day after his $1 million scratch-off ticket won.
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The varying options for lottery winners were highlighted after the recent $588 million Powerball jackpot. Two winning tickets for the record jackpot were presented after the Nov. 28 drawing: A Missouri couple appeared at a press conference and held up the traditional giant-sized check. The Arizona winner, however, skipped the press conference where lottery officials announced last month that someone had claimed the second half of the prize.?
The differing approach to releasing information on the winners reflects a broader debate that is playing out in state Legislatures and lottery offices nationwide: Should the winners' names be secret?
Lawmakers in Michigan and New Jersey think so, proposing bills to allow anonymity because winners are prone to falling victim to scams, shady businesses, greedy distant family members and violent criminals looking to shake them down.
Lotteries object, arguing that publicizing the winners' names drives sales and that having their names released ensures that people know there isn't something fishy afoot, like a game rigged so a lottery insider wins.
When players see that an actual person won, "it has a much greater impact than when they might read that the lottery paid a big prize to an anonymous player," said Andi Brancato, director of public relations for the Michigan state lottery.
Most states require the names of lottery winners be disclosed, albeit in different ways. Some states require the winner to appear at a press conference, like Missouri winners Mark and Cindy Hill did on Nov. 30.
Arizona and other states allow winners not to appear in public, but their names can be obtained through public records laws. The Arizona winner, Matthew Good, was not identified at the news conference a week after the Hills' came forward, and has not given interviews or appeared in public.
When news media including The Associated Press learned of his name through records requests, TV crews and reporters flocked to Good's neighborhood to get reaction from the winner of a lottery that captivated the nation.
Jeff Hatch-Miller, executive director of the Arizona Lottery, said he understands winners' desire for privacy, but he argues they are essentially entering into a large contract with the government that is public. Others argue that appearing at a news conference helps defuse media interest because the winner is available to answer questions that satisfy the media's interest in telling their stories.
In Michigan, Republican state Sen. Tory Rocca pushed a lottery bill that allows winners to remain anonymous. It didn't pass, but in arguing for it, he cited cases where lottery winners were shot and killed because of their newfound wealth.
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