Massachusetts State Lottery Executive Director Michael Sweeney argued last week that he must have access to the internet in order for the lottery to continue to prove revenue in an environment where it must compete against state-sanctioned casinos.
Pointing out that lottery returns millions of dollars annually to municipalities in the Bay State, Sweeney last week told the News Service, “It’s critical to the lottery’s future ability to produce revenue that we’re allowed to engage clearly changing technology and, to me, what is a very strong change in the commerce pattern that consumers engage in.”
He added, “That’s increasingly online and I think that the marketplace is driving just about every business in that direction… it’s certainly a space the lottery has to have the opportunity to also occupy.”
State Senator Jennifer Flanagan has filed a budget amendment that would give the lottery the funding to issue a request for proposals (RFP) to explore launching the lottery onto the World Wide Web. Several months ago it issued a request for information (RFI) that is considered necessary before going to the next step.
The RFI asked for asked for proposals for “the development and integration of digital versions of existing and new lottery games including but not limited to social gaming and daily fantasy sports options.”
The senator declared, “We have the most productive, most successful lottery in the country, our cities and towns benefit from that, the state benefits from that. But we cannot be left behind. We really need to start to look forward, and the amendment allows the Lottery to begin that process.”
This isn’t a new stance for the senator, who has tried to amend the budget similarly the last two sessions. Last week she said, “Certainly the world around us is changing, everything is going to mobile and if you’re going to move a lottery to an online system it’s going to take time. I think it’s important to, and we have a responsibility to, look ahead.”
Sweeney told the Berkshire Eagle he approved of Flanagan’s assistance. “We view the language in Sen. Flanagan’s bill as being a very broad-based mandate and frankly that is what we’re looking for,” he said. “It’s critical because what I’ve found in studying this over the last year is that technology in this world — the online world and the lottery world — is changing and developing so quickly that if too many language parameters are put around it in an enabling act, I’m concerned that would constrict our ability to react, potentially too narrowly.”
Retail outlets that currently sell lottery tickets, including convenience stores, strongly oppose it expanding into the internet.
Although it hasn’t yet entered the online market the Lottery has broken sales records in the last two years. State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, whose department oversees the lottery has warned that this won’t continue without an infusion of technology. She would like to see the Lottery operate a fantasy sports game to try to lure a younger demographic.
Another state Senator, Eileen Donoghue has filed a separate budget amendment to try to raise funds to study “the regulation of fantasy gaming and daily fantasy sports in the commonwealth.”
