Lawmakers take aim at third-party ticket management businesses
By Kate Northrop
Lawmakers are discussing a bill that would prohibit the sale of lottery tickets online in Texas, effectively banning online lottery courier services.
A bill that would prohibit the sale of Texas Lottery tickets online has passed in the Senate and threatens the operation of ticket courier services in the state.
On Saturday, one ticket won the $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot, which stood as the largest lottery prize in the U.S. at the time of the drawing. That ticket was sold at Hooked on MT in Colleyville, but the retailer who sold the winning ticket was listed as Lottery Now.
Lottery Now holds a retailer license issued by the Texas Lottery Commission but operates an online lottery ticket butler service called Mido Lotto, which allows players to buy tickets right from their phone. The courier service purchases and stores physical tickets on behalf of the player, who retains ownership of the tickets they buy through the app.
While Lottery Now is technically a licensed retailer, courier services have no business relationship with the Texas Lottery and are not licensed retailers, Lottery Director of Media Relations Lauren Callahan told Lottery Post. These retailers may offer a ticket management service to their customers to provide them with lottery tickets purchased in Texas.
"The relationships that these companies maintain to obtain Texas Lottery tickets are strictly with individual retailers in Texas with whom they have their own working arrangements," Callahan said.
Senator Bob Hall's bill, Senate Bil 1820, seeks to ban courier services and prohibit such companies from selling tickets online, arguing that lottery tickets should be sold directly to players in a face-to-face transaction.
The bill moved on to the House after passing in the Senate unanimously on April 12. On April 18, it was referred to the Licensing & Administrative Procedures Committee, which regulates gaming industries in the state and matters pertaining to the Texas Lottery Commission.
The winner of the $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot has not come forward to claim their cash prize of $57.8 million before taxes and has 180 days from the draw date to make the claim.
Unbelievable! Playing online allows those of us that work 9-5 to play the 4 draws a day that we aren't able to bc we work. The Courier service aka online game play is the only way real lottery players can participate. Make it easier for us to play online and we won't need the websites such as Jackpocket. There are other things to worry about an to expedite that are more pressing than online betting in Texas.
It not only hurts the working class but also handicapped that don't have the means to get to a retailer. This is only one of the reasons people do online betting outside of the lottery.
Thats not fair! Why would the lawmakers do that!!!!
What about TheLotter? Will they still offer sales for Texas lottery tickets? Todd?
"arguing that lottery tickets should be sold directly to players in a face-to-face transaction"
Don't they know several states offered Online sales for years?
And regardless of who buys the tickets, the Texas Lottery gets their cut.
The bill moved on to the House after passing in the Senate unanimously on April 12. On April 18, it was referred to the Licensing & Administrative Procedures Committee, which regulates gaming industries in the state and matters pertaining to the Texas Lottery Commission.
Looks like the Legislature was working on this before the big jackpot win.
Personally I don't have an opinion one way or the other on this. I've always had my favorite stores to buy my tix so it doesn't really affect me, but I can see why some would like to buy tix online.
I would assume that if the legislation were to pass and get signed into law that every lottery company, including TheLotter, would be prohibited from doing business in the state. Hopefully that does not happen, for Texans sake.
Who knows, maybe someone will find a way to do it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery_Office
It seems like this bill might not target online betting as a whole. It said third-party businesses. You could probably still use the official TX lottery app to play online
As far as I know, the Texas Lottery does not offer the ability to play online. The only way to do so is through these third party butler service companies, which is what some in the legislature are discussing outlawing. So if this were to go through, Texans would lose all ability to play online. i.e., not good for Texans.
More Texans need to get out and vote.
I know some state
lotteries allow you to play on their website. TX do not and maybe they should start
Texas Lottery should be selling tickets online to increase revenues. European lotteries sell tickets through the internet.
Yeah, I was trying to figure out their logic too. Someone should tell Bob Hall there is no "face-to-face transaction" when players buy their tickets from a Kiosk machine either. Or will prohibiting Kiosk sales be his next bill?
A person has to buy the ticket themselves, and not use any service to acquire their tickets, except for the ticket buyer to go into the store location themselves. A person has to buy their tickets at the counter, or lottery ticket vending machine is how I interpret it.
Not everyone works 9 to 5.
I guess some people don't see what's really going on. It is what it is and it's tough.
Nowadays, some people work 10 to 6. It's a lot different now than it was in 1980.
I am a tech developer beginner. ai is in, not looking good. Currently I still work in a food establishment, once people start seeing what I really do, I am done, no more working. People are going to be scared. The retired people aren't seeing and might not have done the math correct. I am also 50 in dec. of course way different than 1980.
"A person has to buy the ticket themselves, and not use any service to acquire their tickets "
If that's true, no more giving lottery tickets as birthday and Christmas presents. And don't forget asking someone to purchase tickets for you and pools. Not sure how the could prevent people from buying tickets for other especially from Kiosk machines.
"no more giving lottery tickets as birthday and Christmas presents. And don't forget asking someone to purchase tickets for you and pools."
I think the bit about face to face transactions is either intentional (moralistic?) BS propaganda or stupidity. There doesn't appear to be any intent for the bill to require that sales are made to the actual player who will own the ticket, and it will still be perfectly legal to buy a ticket for somebody else. What would become illegal certain methods for making the arrangements. Here's the relevant text: [enforce]"prohibitions on a person playing or facilitating the playing of a lottery game by telephone or through the Internet."
That means the bill will make it illegal to ask your spouse to pick up lottery tickets by phone (likely including text messages) or email. It will make it illegal to use a phone or email to ask a friend, relative, or coworker to buy tickets. That would include simply telling them by phone or email what game or numbers you want for a purchase you previously discussed in person. Obviously the same would be true for lottery pools, whether in an office or elsewhere, and the prohibited facilitation would include anything related to payments and who's playing for a particular drawing. Arguably, it would criminalize using email to share images of the tickets that have already been purchased.
I don't know exactly how stupid the bill's sponsor might be, but if the intent of the bill is just to prohibit butler services from using phones or the internet as part of the arrangements to buy tickets I have to figure that he's extremely stupid. Not that I want to offer him any clues about how to do it, but the one thing that distinguishes butler services from just about any other scenario in which somebody buys tickets on your behalf is a service charge, but I suppose writing a bill that prohibits charging any fees to acquire tickets on behalf of somebody else could be a truly extraordinary challenge.
Obviously, these guys have way too much time on their hands.
at this point it would be more efficient for texas to make a list of the things people are still allowed to do.
Senator Bob Hall's bill seems like a bunch of BS. "tickets should be sold directly to players in a face-to-face transaction." So that's your main issus with buying things online Bob? Why just the lottery Bob? You minds well ban all online sales. How about no selling anything online Bob. Boooo big head azz Bob sukks. Whatever Bob buys or does onine online needs to be banned. If you're not having an face to face conversation then Bob probably wants to ban texting too. Let me stop before Bob bans lottery post because everyone is buying memberships online and not in a face to face transaction. GTFOH Bob! Bob is probably getting paid buy someone who is being greedy and wants to redirect money back their way.
All these mass shootings happening in face to face encounters and Bob's like hmmmm I'm bored let's ban online lottery sales.
Note that Texas State only profits more from 3rd party facilitators because their proceeds per ticket remain the same, and more tickets are sold due to extra ticket sales from these facilitators.
Texas State is shooting themselves in their proverbial foot by coercively preventing 3rd party profits from ticket sales.