Ontario lottery winners will no longer be identified by last name in OLG news releases

Lottery number selection slips seen at a shop as the largest lottery jackpot in Canadian history is up for grabs on January 07, 2020. (Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The last names of lottery winners will no longer be included in Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation news releases in an effort to protect the privacy of those who win big, but full names will continue to be publicly disclosed on its website.

According to the OLG, winner releases are now being issued with the first name of the winner and the first initial of their last name rather than the full surname.

“We have been hearing from winners for a while about the need to protect their privacy… but we need to balance those concerns with our requirement as a government agency to be transparent about our winners,” Tony Bitonti, a spokesperson for OLG, said in a statement to CP24.com.

“For a while now, the pictures we send out of our winners and their cheque, the cheque has the first name and the first initial of the winner’s last name. So, we decided to do the same for the winner story releases.”

Bitonti noted that the full names of winners of prizes over $1,000 or more are posted on OLG.ca for 30 days.

‘Forever on the web’

Social media and the internet also played a role in the change, he added.

“The winners’ stories live on forever on the web versus the days when we only had access to printed newspapers that had a short life span,” Bitonti said.

“So, finding a balance between the winner privacy and the requirement to be transparent as a provincial government agency is important to both parties.”

Scammers are also factors in protecting the privacy of winners, he said.

“We have seen, from time to time, after we publicize a big winner story, specifically a winner for $50 million or more, we see there are scammers who try to use the winner’s pictures on social media for schemes,” Bitonti told CP24.

In one scam, he said, fraudsters promise to send people a portion of the winnings if they provide $10 to $20 for shipping.

“When OLG sees these fake social media posts, we work with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to take these posts down as soon as possible,” Bitonti confirmed.

“This is another way try to help protect a winner’s privacy while being transparent about who wins our lottery prizes.”

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