After Randy Rush collected his $50-million Lotto Max jackpot money in Lamont, Alta., in 2015, he says he decided to “get out of dodge” immediately to avoid the inevitable headaches he knew would come with being publicly identified as a lottery winner.
“It’s a hell of a lot of money, right?,” he said in an interview this week.
“And you know, some people would take advantage of that. I’ve been very conscientious of that right from the beginning.”
But in order to get that mega payout, Rush said he knew having his photo and name publicized was part of the deal.
“I thought it was a small price to pay for the bigger picture,” he said.
“But if there was an option there to … not have my name published, yeah, I think I would have had that option.”
Publicizing the names of those lucky enough to win the lottery has long been seen as a way to ensure transparency and fairness on behalf of gaming giants.
But in the age when those stories can live online forever, some lottery commissions are reconsidering how much information they share about who those winners are.
No more last names
Last month, articles about two longtime friends in London, Ont. who won Canada’s largest-ever lottery payout still featured photos of the smiling winners with their oversized cheque. But missing from those articles were the friends’ last names.
That reflects a policy change by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation that took effect in March. The Crown corporation now releases only winners’ first names and last initial to the media.
The change came in response to more winners raising privacy concerns in recent years, OLG spokesperson Tony Bitonti said.
“10 years ago, 12 years ago, we would put out their story and it would be printed in a newspaper, and then the newspaper would be tossed away,” he said.
“Now, there’s very few printed editions, everything is online, so their winner stories are now being used online, which is great, but those stories live on forever.”
The full names of all winners of prizes over $1,000 will also appear on OLG’s website for 30 days after they collect their winnings.
The British Columbia Lottery Corporation has also been sharing only the first name and last initial for all winners since Jan. 1.
“BCLC approached this decision with the intent of providing winners with more privacy while still sharing details of the winner to inform the public that the prize has been paid to the rightful person,” a spokesperson said in an email.
As a government agency, Bitonti said OLG still has to publicize who claims those winning tickets in order to be transparent about where its money goes.
It’s also key to ensuring that the jackpot is claimed by the right person, he said.
‘Open targets’
Rush said he has made concerted efforts to maintain his privacy since winning the lottery, something he says has helped him avoid harassment.
“Right, wrong or indifferent, your life does change, and you just have to have a little more guidelines in place or boundaries,” he said.
“The people I have around me now are solid, but in the beginning, there were a few years where it really took some time to weed people out, and some of them were very unpleasant.”
But that does not mean it has been entirely smooth sailing for the jackpot winner.
Rush has co-authored two books about his positive and negative experiences since winning the lottery. The latter included a lengthy legal battle with a former friend and business partner after Rush invested millions in his tech startup.
When it becomes known that someone has won millions of dollars, all kinds of people can come out of the woodwork — sometimes with bad intentions, said Stephan Desbiens, a financial planner with Exponent Investment Management in Ottawa who has advised a number of lottery winners.
“There’s always someone out there trying to figure out a way to gain access to money, illegally. And in the case of lottery winners, they become open targets,” he said.
He said he has seen clients approached by long-lost friends with investment opportunities “that basically were really an attempt at fraud or getting money from the winner.”
“Those are very common, I would say.”
Desbiens said he advises people to keep the win to themselves as much as possible, at least until they figure out how they are going to handle their new found fortune.
“Because once you go there and claim your prize, you don’t have control over what happens next in terms of your privacy, in terms of any potential harassment, any old friends suddenly coming forward — because they will.”
High bar for anonymity
But claiming a winning lottery ticket while remaining completely anonymous is much more difficult.
Michael Cochrane, a lawyer with Brauti Thorning LLP in Toronto who specializes in lottery law, said he gets calls every week from lottery winners looking for advice, often on this very issue.
While lottery commissions will sometimes grant anonymity in special circumstances if the winner has genuine concerns for their safety, the bar is very high, he said.
“Maybe you’re in the middle of a case in court where you’re a victim, or you’re being harassed or there’s a history of harassment. Those are the kind of cases that the OLG is going to take seriously,” he said.
“But if you’re worried you’re going to be a victim of a scam just generally, that’s not going to meet the test.”
Cochrane said he thinks gaming giants need to be transparent about who wins the jackpot in order to reassure the public that the lottery is fair.
The OLG came under scrutiny in the mid-2000s after a series of suspicious insider wins were flagged by Ontario’s ombudsman.
Those include a 2003 Super 7 jackpot worth $12.5 million that was fraudulently claimed by three family members working at a convenience store who were eventually found guilty of stealing lottery tickets.
“That’s the kind of stuff that undermines confidence in the whole lottery corporation or the whole lottery scheme,” he said.
“So I’m in favour of publicizing [winners], but keeping a failsafe for people who really truly need protection.”
