Arkansas rejects lottery changes bill

The Arkansas House of Representatives has rejected proposed legislation to keep the identities of certain lottery winners secret.

US.- The Arkansas House of Representatives has rejected a bill to allow certain lottery winners to keep their identities secret. The proposed legislation attempted to keep the personal information of certain jackpot lottery winners secret, in order to protect the player’s safety, as explained by the bill’s proponents.

The proposed legislation was designed to protect winners of more than US$500k in the state lottery by keeping their identities a secret. However, in a 39-30 vote last week, state lawmakers rejected the bill, as they thought such information should remain public in order to protect transparency of the whole process.

Media groups had previously opposed the bill as they believed there was no way to know whether there was any misconduct in the state lottery. Sonny Albarado, a member of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Coalition, told a legislative panel: “If you hide information about lottery winners, you don’t know whether the winner might be connected to someone in the lottery, you don’t know whether someone in the lottery has arranged for someone outside the lottery to win.”

“Our goal is to allow the Department of Correction to implement the laws the Legislature passes that the people of Arkansas overwhelmingly support,” Republican Sen. Bart Hester, the bill’s sponsor, had said a few weeks back.

“Lottery winners should watch their back,” another bill supportive lawmaker stated.