The Delaware Lottery recently installed 100 vending machines at dozens of convenience stores throughout the state, including all 43 Wawa locations. But the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems expressed concern that minors could easily purchase scratch-off tickets. The group’s Executive Director Arlene Simon said, “I’ve had a couple of phone calls from concerned citizens who are asking me, ‘Well, who is monitoring them? So that underage people don’t just start going and buying lottery tickets and scratch-offs.'”
Simon added, “Certainly they’re not going to have a person standing there watching who is purchasing the tickets. The young kids today are so much into gaming, on their iPads and phones and all of that, that it’s just another form of gaming to them.”
Jeff Wasserman, judicial outreach and development director for the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems, noted, “It’s as easy now as apparently getting a soda from a vending machine.”
Delaware State Lottery Director Vernon Kirk said retailers with lottery vending machines agree to implement safeguards to prevent underage gambling. “The retailers where we place these machines sign a special agreement and that agreement includes there has to be camera, surveillance of the machines. And the machines have to be in locations that are within eyesight of the clerk or teller that is there. There is also a remote shutoff that operates up to 50 feet. So, we have some safeguards built into it as best we can.”
In response to the Delaware Council on Gambling Problems’ concerns that giving scratch-off tickets as gifts to minors could lead to future gambling problems, Kirk said, “I would respectively disagree. If somebody wants to give something to somebody else, that’s pretty intrusive for us to say otherwise.”
