Courier company pushed out of a second state as criticism heightens
By Kate Northrop
A lottery courier has ceased operations in New Mexico following a negative legal opinion from the State Attorney General, making the state the latest flashpoint in the mounting scrutiny of courier services.
New Mexico is the latest state to voice a negative opinion on lottery couriers, which has prompted the state's largest lottery courier to back out.
Negative sentiment against lottery courier services has been spreading like wildfire ever since the $83.5 million Lotto Texas win in February triggered an assessment of the Texas Lottery and a $95 million jackpot buyout scheme.
Last week, the Texas Lottery announced a new policy banning lottery couriers in the state. The New York Gaming Commission subsequently announced that it was influenced by the bad press in Texas to reevaluate its relationship with couriers as well.
On Feb. 26, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez issued an opinion that the company's "operations in New Mexico raise several legal issues." According to documents, Torrez found that the courier constitutes internet gaming.
"...Jackpocket's activities are firmly within the definition of "internet gaming": the lottery is a game that is played for stakes, and Jackpocket allows an individual to play this game utilizing the internet," Torrez wrote. "The fact that a Jackpocket employee still physically places the bet on a paper lottery ticket is irrelevant."
While lottery courier services will set up shop at a physical retailer location to physically process tickets, the Attorney General underlined several facets of the business model that may be in violation of the law.
"Jackpocket is effectively selling lottery tickets," Torrez wrote. "Therefore, it needs a certificate of authority from the [New Mexico Lottery Authority] to act as a lottery retailer in New Mexico."
New Mexico state law prohibits any person from directly or indirectly accepting a fee to be transmitted or delivered for gambling on the results of a game of chance. Lottery couriers accept a processing fee for the tickets they buy directly from the Lottery on behalf of a player making a purchase over the Internet. The Attorney General considers the business practice to be "reselling lottery tickets for a profit," which is prohibited by law.
State law also says that "[n]o person shall sell a ticket at a price other than at the price established by the authority unless authorized in writing by the chief executive officer," and the New Mexico Lottery forbids the sale of any lottery ticket at a price other than the fixed price set by the agency.
Since the issuance of Torrez's legal opinion, Jackpocket has halted its operations in New Mexico. This is the second time it has left a state, having pulled out of Texas immediately following the Texas Lottery's ban on lottery couriers.
"After receiving a copy of an opinion from New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, which was requested by tribes in New Mexico, Jackpocket has temporarily suspended lottery courier operations in the state," DraftKings SVP of Lottery Peter Sullivan told The Closing Line. "We are exploring options and avenues to find a resolution to this matter."
Time will tell whether the courier's departure from New Mexico is only temporary. Torrez's legal opinion is an authoritative interpretation of the law, not a definitive ruling. However, it does carry significant weight, enough to push the courier company to voluntarily cease operations to avoid potential legal action.
Just wondering
y wld a store front need 30-47 terminals and hidden in the back?
when u hiding in back, we need to see what u are doing
so yes TX Authorized the purchase of those terminals and the store in Colleyville closed within 30 days after they got their $$
a front at its finest to manipulate the draws
Interesting, but no surprise. Again we see laws were in place to prevent courier operations.
If this is the way couriers operate in all states the clear solution is to make it a criminal offense to charge more than face value for tickets while eliminating processing fees, surcharges, or other additional/hidden charges.
Couriers will dry up when they can no longer make a profit.
As the saying goes "Where there is smoke, there is fire 🔥"
Totally very fishy business going on right there.
To close the store after the win is the last nail on the coffin ⚰️
Eventually Jackpocket was going to win bcuz they are the #1 seller in TX
I wonder how many jackpots tickets these courier services have produced. And no store should have no more then 2 mabye 3 machines max! Is there anyway to find out if my state has courier services?
If your state allows internet or app sales of lottery tickets they allow third party couriers services.
The app or lottery site takes the order/makes the sake then contacts a retailer in your state to purchase the ticket
In some cases they are both located in The same building as they were in Texas.
Texas says most retailers only need/have one terminal. Since this fiasco started they put a limit of 5 for any retailer.
Thanks for the reply. My state does not have this.
"y wld a store front need 30-47 terminals and hidden in the back? "
That's the point that actually matters. I don't see any problem with the basic concept of a courier service, but no retailer should be allowed to operate more terminals than past sales prove they need to operate normally. If you didn't need a dozen or two dozen terminals to issue the tickets you've been selling for the last few weeks then you don't get a bunch extra for next week.
There may also need to be significant penalties to any retailer that facilitates sales of a huge portion of the possible combinations. A mom and pop place should never be able to get more than one or two terminals, but there may be a dozen or more chains that have large numbers of terminals because of their large number of locations. The nature of issuing tickets means that it would be easy to monitor for unusual sales patterns, so even if a syndicate got a chain to cooperate by printing tickets at a bunch of locations the lottery should be able to know very quickly.