Massachusetts treasurer urges legislators to legalise online lottery

Massachusetts Treasurer Deborah Goldberg has urged the lawmakers in the state to pass legislation to legalise online lottery in the state.

“This is an operating company that needs to modernise, and what we are seeing across the world is a cannibalisation of sales and the disruption caused for bricks-and-mortar companies by the internet,” Goldberg told legislators. “And particularly, there are only so many entertainment dollars in total, so Lottery for a very long time was a predictable, terrific business, but it had no competition.”

She also explained she believes “sports betting will happen this session” but warned: “When sports betting is going, when daily fantasy sports is going, if we don’t have the lottery online, we absolutely must advertise more.”

“We’re supportive of the treasurer’s move to online lottery,” Administration and Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan said and added: “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 cannibalising another form of gambling.”