Texas Lottery Alert: Winner Details Taken From Agency by Rogue Employee

In Texas, if you’ve won a lottery game, you might not be as lucky as you think.

News sources in the Lone Star state said the Texas Lottery Commission has alerted more than 89,000 lottery winners that sensitive information about them including their names, Social Security numbers, addresses and prize amounts were taken from the agency without permission by a former employee.

The 39-year-old computer analyst, who left the state commission last year after eight years on the job, apparently copied onto computer disks sensitive information on thousands of lottery commission employees, retailers and vendors, as well.

The employee, who copied the data onto his work computer at the Texas Comptroller’s Office, has not been charged with anything yet. But this sounds an awful lot like massive identity theft.

This incident demands immediate investigation.

The case is being investigated by the Travis County District Attorney’s office.

Investigators with the Texas Comptroller’s Office said they have no evidence the information was used to commit fraud. But then why would the perpetrator do such a thing?

The Lottery Commission is advising those they contact to place a fraud alert on their credit files.

In August, investigators with the Comptroller’s Office were asked to examine the computer files of the former lottery employee, who was working for the comptroller. They discovered sensitive data on 27,000 individuals, the majority of them winners. Subsequent searches turned up data on 78,000 additional individuals, including 62,000 winners.

Several days after he was fired, the employee told investigators that he wanted the information “for possible future reference as a programmer at other state agencies.”

Yeah. Right.

This man belongs in jail.

What do you think?

By the numbers:

Tonight’s Mega Millions jackpot is $42 million.

Saturday’s Powerball jackpot is $25 million.

Stay tuned for my weekend alerts about those games.

And good luck, everyone.