State legislators reverse Colorado Lottery's decision to allow players to pay with credit cards
By Kate Northrop
The Colorado state governor has signed a bill into law that will allow the Colorado Lottery to operate online sales but reverses its decision to allow players to buy tickets with credit cards.
Colorado lawmakers have come to a concrete conclusion about the state of digital convenience in the lottery, namely that credit card purchases are banned, but an online lottery may be on the horizon.
On May 29, Governor Jared Polis signed SB117 into law, which stipulates the permissible methods of buying and selling lottery tickets directly to players.
According to the bill, lottery tickets, including scratch-off tickets, sold directly by the Lottery or its retailers "must not be sold on credit."
It reverses his prior position in support of consumer convenience and rolls back a rule change approved by the lottery commission in November 2025, which passed by a vote of 4-1. As soon as it did, however, some legislators had expressed concern that it might feed into gambling addiction.
"I will be doing everything I can to keep this from happening," Senator Jeff Bridges said after the lottery commission voted to permit credit card purchases and online sales. Bridges was one of the 35 co-sponsors of the bill.
In the bill's original version, it also prohibited "the online sale of any lottery ticket or instant scratch game ticket, regardless of payment method," although the topic of online sales was totally struck from the final document that Polis signed.
Polis was initially very supportive of credit card purchases and had championed digital convenience at the onset of the debate between lawmakers. A spokesperson for his office said that he was in favor of ways to "ensure customers don't need to fumble through several cards to buy what they want."
Had the Colorado Lottery's rule change not been suppressed by legislature, it would have expected to begin allowing credit card sales by the beginning of 2027.
I welcome the idea of being able to purchase your lotteries online.
I do, 100% support the idea of not allowing purchases to be made on credit.
I don't think anyone should be playing any lottery with borrowed money.
It's a recipe for financial ruin and predatory loans.
I agree totally with your first line. It would be great for me not to have to go somewhere to get the tickets but only because I do not get around like I did a couple of decades ago.
I mostly agree with your second line and I will specify credit cards and not just credit. There are of course exceptions to every rule. I think that both you and I would never have a problem putting $10 or $20 or even more on a credit card for a lottery purchase because we are very aware of how these things work and would pay the bill in full when it arrives each month (forget minimum payments!) . We would use the credit card as just another convenient tool to access money that we already have that we want to play the lottery with. No harm, no foul.
But unfortunately, I believe that there are *MANY* people who are not fiscally responsible who would undoubtedly run into horrible financial problems because of lottery (and other) purchases with credit cards.
Yes, I agree with your third and fourth lines, but mainly for the folks I just mentioned.
Best wishes and may your future be debt free!
Fun Fact: I use my credit card for 99.99% of my purchases. I like the cash back, points, miles etc that I get from using it.
I also pay off my credit card every fortnight. No minimums, no nothing, pay off everything.
I am 100% sure the bank hates me because they don't make any money off me 🤣
I only use cash in two instances.
1. Lottery purchases and,
2. Tipping - I don't like putting tips on my card, I prefer to tip in cash so that the recipient is not taxed for it 😁
Consumer debt is at an all time high.
A credit card is a financial tool, the wise use it to their advantage.
"Best wishes and may your future be debt free!"
Thank you for the wishes, it sounds like a jackpot win to me 🙏