If I won a multi-million dollar lottery ticket, I’d give serious thought to ripping it to pieces right in front of lottery officials after confirming that I had no right to privacy. Better that than to live looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, or hiring security guards, or moving to another state just to live in relative safety.
Do lottery officials not realize that people are dying because of the lack of anonymity?
In the latest case, three people allegedly murdered a Lotto winner in Georgia in January after breaking into his house, taking him and his two-year old baby hostage and demanding money. When they couldn’t find his wallet, they shot him. Three were involved with the actual break-in and killing, but the four others were somehow involved as well, and the police are promising more arrests.
In a lot of the cases, it was family members who were the murderers, but lately it’s been strangers or casual acquaintances who have carried out the attempted armed robberies and murders.
Granting Lotto winners privacy will protect them from the people they don’t know. Keeping their own mouths shut about their good luck may help deal with relatives who decide there’s some kind of score to be made.
The practice of trotting the winners out in front of the cameras for all to see to accept a huge check should come to an end. How many people need to get robbed in their own homes at gunpoint, their families threatened, and the prize winners gunned down before these lotteries (in every state, and not just a few) get with the program?
This needs to get fixed.
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