The Florida House Gaming Control Subcommittee recently passed House Bill 629 which would ban the sale of lottery tickets and games online, including smartphone, mobile, tablet, desktop and laptop sales and via any other devices that can connect to the internet. Introduced by state Rep. William Cloud Robinson, the bill would limit lottery sales to physical purchases only. It the measure passes the legislature, it would take effect July 1, making Florida only the second state to limit lottery ticket sales; a similar bill was introduced in New Mexico earlier this month.
Robinson said numerous third-party websites claim to be affiliated with the Florida Lottery, but they simply mark up prices. He noted, “These fraudulent websites are, in my view, illegally advertising when they are not related to the lottery system at all.”
Robinson cited an incident reported last year involving a woman who bought a winning ticket through TheLotter.com. An attorney for the company said it worked with the store in Campbellton which printed a pay slip and scanned an image to send to the Israel-based website, from which the consumer purchased the ticket at a marked-up price. Officials had no knowledge of the website until the woman showed up to claim a $30 million jackpot from a store she had never visited. The state ultimately paid the woman her prize but canceled the contract with the retailer.
Robinson wants to make clear no ticket purchased electronically will be considered valid. “Once you start allowing mobile devices, you are expanding the scope of the lottery. The state of Florida wants to make sure the right thing is being sold,” he said.
Robinson’s bill also would include warnings on the front of all lottery tickets, advertising and promotional materials, stating: “Warning: Playing a lottery game constitutes gambling and may lead to addiction and/or compulsive behavior. The chances of winning a big prize are very low”.
State Rep. Emily Slosberg objected to warnings, stating, “To add a warning that says playing the lottery game constitutes gambling and may lead to addiction is misleading, is deceptive disclosure to the people of Florida. There’s not one supported case of a person that wakes up every morning that goes to the gas station to buy Florida Lottery tickets and sits there all day addicted to the Florida Lottery. This disclosure that we add is unnecessary, and I can’t support the bill.”
However, state Rep. Randy Fine, who formerly ran a casino consulting company in Las Vegas, disagreed. “The research proves that there are people that become addicted to gambling, and whether it’s 1 percent or 5 percent, people do at times become susceptible to this. I know this from my prior life.” He added, “If it doesn’t matter, if nobody actually has issues, there will be no fiscal impact, because nobody would buy any fewer lottery tickets. And if there is an issue, this might dissuade one or two, or one percent, of the world from falling susceptible to this. I don’t think we do any damage either to the lottery or to the lives of people simply by letting them know that there could be an issue with this.”
