Massachusetts Treasurer Deb Goldberg strongly lobbied lawmakers to allow the state lottery, which she oversees, to offer online lottery.
She notes that the online lottery in New Hampshire took in $1.3 million in revenue from online sales during its first three months.
The state allows online and phone wagers on horse racing, but currently lottery tickets must be purchased in brick and mortar retail operations. Many of those operators oppose Goldberg’s proposal.
She argues that the lottery needs to modernize and use mobile platforms to appeal to Millennials, who are not big purchasers of lottery tickets.
Goldberg told the legislators on the House and Senate Ways and Means committees “This is an operating company that needs to modernize, and what we are seeing across the world is a cannibalization of sales and the disruption caused for bricks-and-mortar companies by the internet.”
Forty-four states have lotteries, and 25 percent of those offer the games online. Goldberg expects others to do the same very soon.
At the same time Governor Charlie Baker is calling on the legislature to approve sports betting, and allow the state’s casinos and online vendors to offer it.
Goldberg said “I believe sports betting will happen this session. When sports betting is going, when daily fantasy sports is going, if we don’t have the lottery online, we absolutely must advertise more.”
Administration and Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan was asked if legal sports betting would affect other forms of gaming revenue. He said sports betting was “very symbiotic” with brick and mortar casinos because it encourages bettors to travel to them and take advantage of other casino amenities.
Heffernan added, “It’s also a different demographic, we believe, than what traditionally plays the Lottery. We’re supportive of the treasurer’s move to online lottery. It seems to be a different demographic from the folks that play in sports betting so we think it is not a reallocating of the same pie, it actually is growing the pie of revenues to the state versus cannibalizing another form of gambling.”
Goldberg also put in a pitch for putting the lottery in charge of sports betting if it is legalized. “If the legislature, as they move through their process, and it’ll be a pretty intricate process, that they would like to see sports betting be part of the Massachusetts State Lottery, we would be prepared to work with them to execute properly, and we would do it, I believe, very well,” she said.
