Professor Micheletto mentioned on Monday that the Illinois Lottery is now available online. I was a little bit shocked that they were doing this, so I dug a little deeper into it.
I am by no means against gambling, I am an avid card player, can occasionally be found in the casino, and growing up in a town that pretty much shuts down at 7 PM, most summer nights you can find my buddies and I killing time at the convenience store buying scratch tickets in lieu of something better to do. The reason I was so surprised is the ease it allows tickets to be purchased. I couldn't find exactly what the verification process is, but I'm guessing it is probably something pretty simple like a credit card and license number.
There are two problems I see with this, the first being kids using cards to buy or gamble online. This to me, is admittedly not the worst thing in the world, I bought scratch tickets long before turning 18 and there are much worse things teenagers could be doing. The second is allowing purchases on credit cards. I don't know if there are actually a law prohibiting it or not, but I have personally never seen anyplace that sold lottery tickets via credit cards. I've only seen places ever allow you to use cash, it may not be the case but I haven't seen it done otherwise. The problem I see with this is for compulsive gamblers and this allows them to basically run up credit card debt on lottery. And yes, there are ways to do it that way anyway through getting out cash from the card or things like that, but this seriously simplifies that process.
For the Illinois lottery I'm sure it will create more sales, but I think it just creates more problems than its worth.
Do you think its a good decision for Illinois, or potentially other states that are closely watching the Illinois program's success, to continue this program in the long run?
