North Carolina’s lottery—looking for that next game or technology to generate more sales and profits for public education—is taking it slow on expanding further online sales as traditional lottery retailers and social conservatives express reservations.
For the past few months, the North Carolina Education Lottery Commission has considered expanding online games. In particular, it has reviewed digital instants, the electronic equivalents of scratch-off tickets players can access from their desktops or smartphones and play using debit cards or checking accounts. Currently, players can buy tickets for big jackpot drawings through the lottery’s website.
However, recently the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association asked state legislators to reconsider digital instants, and the North Carolina Family Policy Council asked lottery commissioners to oppose the expansion. After dropping the subject at the lottery commission’s recent quarterly meeting, Chairman Courtney Crowder said, “We wanted to make sure that they all knew that we did in fact take their concerns seriously.”
An outside performance audit of North Carolina’s lottery projected online games could generate $130 million in new revenues over five years. However, North Carolina convenience stores that sell traditional scratch-off ticket are concerned they’ll lose players and sales for other products they sell. In a letter to legislators, NCRMA President Andy Ellen wrote, “This is a major shift in policy and strategy for selling lottery tickets that we feel is deserving of a more thorough dialogue.”
Family Policy Council President John Rustin said allowing the lottery to offer digital instant games would be “a huge expansion of gambling in our state.” He also told legislators the ease of playing the lottery online would lead to more gambling addiction. Additionally, conservative Christians who oppose gambling said the digital instants resemble illegal video sweepstakes games; lottery officials strongly object to that comparison.
Since the lottery started in 2006, sales have increased annually to $2.4 billion last year, with $622.5 million in net earnings going to education initiatives. Still, said Georgia Lottery spokeswoman Tandi Reddick, the North Carolina lottery continually is seeking new, younger players who are more comfortable with computers. “It is critical that we maintain product relevance and diversify our product mix,” she said.
Lia Nower, director of the Center for Gambling Studies at Rutgers University, said traditional scratch-off game players tend to be older, come from a lower socioeconomic category and do not seem to be interested in online play. Younger players represent “a whole different demographic, and they get bored easily,” Nower said.
