A law granting lottery winners anonymity in Oregon has been approved by Governor Tina Kotek, becoming the 23rd state to do so.
Out of the 45 US regions which operate a state lottery, 23 have publicly disclosed the winners of lottery jackpots throughout the lottery’s history.
Oregon was included in this number until House Bill 3115 was approved by the state legislature on 17 March and subsequently by Governor Kotek last Thursday.
The legislation was originally introduced with a focus on lottery ticket resales. Similar to developments in Texas, legislators wanted to try and protect the integrity of the state lottery.
Oregon Representatives sought to ban people from buying potential winning lottery tickets from others and also prevent people from claiming winnings on behalf of others in exchange for payment.
An amendment was subsequently added during legislative debates to grant anonymity to lottery winners. This had previously been attempted in 2019 but the proposal was rejected in the House of Representatives.
Proponents argue that the anonymity clause is necessary to protect lottery winners from harassment, scamming, and online doxing.
Opponents argue that there should be transparency in who wins lottery tickets due to the huge jackpots involved and the lottery’s role as a fundraiser for charitable causes across the state.
Governor Kotek clearly sides with the former viewpoint. She said: “As governor, I believe that safety and transparency are not mutually exclusive and can be achieved concurrently.
“Given this, I will direct the agency to continue to make non identifying winner information such as city and ZIP code data readily available.
“I believe the Oregon Lottery will maintain strong oversight of the system.”
Oregon is not the only state to look at protecting winner anonymity. Virginia passed a law in March, not long after Oregon’s legislation was approved by the state Senate, granting anonymity to winners of prizes in excess of $1m, dropping the threshold to $10m.
Michigan has also looked to do something similar, with a bill proposed to the House of Representatives back in January which would offer anonymity to people who win mulit-million dollar prizes on cross-state draws like Powerball.
This bill passed the House on 15 April 2025 and is now being considered by the Senate Committee on Regulatory Affairs.