| Posted: October 28, 2009, 10:30 pm - IP Logged | |
I think it is a matter of definition, when you say "national" according to the following it means run by the govt. Our "national lotteries" are actually multi state lotteries run by privately owned companies supervised by the states. It may be the merger of the two multistate lotteries. They are kinda like the govt. run healthcare lotteries. I've actually heard people say that the lotteries are a tax on the low income people of the US and all other takers.
"In March, Gov. Corzine's proposed budget suggested adding Powerball asa way to raise $10 million more a year for coffers of New Jersey, oneof the 12 Mega Millions states." WOW this guy just spent $22 million of his own campaign dollars to get himself re-elected! He could have just given that money to the people of NJ and gotten re-elected no lottery needed.
more from the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery#Countries_with_a_national_lottery
In the United States, the existence of lotteries is subject to the laws of each state; there is no national lottery.
Header from 1840 US patent on a new type of private lotteryPrivate lotteries were legal in the United States in the early 1800s.[7] In fact, a number of US patents were granted on new types of lotteries. In today's vernacular, these would be considered business method patents.
Before the advent of state-sponsored lotteries, many illegal lotteries thrived; for example, see Numbers game and Peter H. Matthews. The first modern state lottery in the U.S. was established in the state of New Hampshire in 1964; as of 2008, lotteries are established in 42 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands; Arkansas voters, on November 4, 2008, approved a ballot question to legalize a state lottery.
The first modern interstate lottery in the U.S. was formed in 1985 and linked Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1988, the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) was formed with Oregon, Iowa, Kansas, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Missouri, and the District of Columbia as its charter members; it is best known for its "Powerball" drawing, which is designed to build up very large jackpots. Another interstate lottery, The Big Game (now called Mega Millions), was formed in 1996 by the states of Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan and Virginia as its charter members. These states were joined by New Jersey (1999), New York and Ohio (May 2002), Washington state (September 2002), Texas (2003) and California (2005) for a total of 12 members.[8]
Instant lottery tickets, also known as scratch cards, were first introduced in the 1970s and have since become a major source of state lottery revenue. Some states have introduced keno and video lottery terminals (slot machines in all but name).
Other interstate lotteries include Cashola, Hot Lotto and Wild Card 2, some of MUSL's other games.
With the advent of the Internet it became possible for people toplay lottery-style games on-line, many times for free (the cost of theticket being supplemented by merely seeing, say, a pop-up ad). GTech Corporation,in the United States, administers 70% of the worldwide online andinstant lottery business, according to its website. With online gamingrules generally prohibitive, "lottery" games face less scrutiny. Thisis leading to the increase in web sites offering lottery ticketpurchasing services, charging premiums on base lottery prices. Thelegality of such services falls into question across manyjurisdictions, especially throughout the United States, as the gamblinglaws related to lottery play generally have not kept pace with thespread of technology.
An evolution of the lottery on the internet has appeared on the social network Facebook. The free lottery has weekly drawings and allows people to receive daily lottery tickets and send their friends tickets.
Presently, large portions of many American state lotteries are used to fund public education systems.