Bill banning lottery courier services passes Indiana House and Senate

Comment #20

LottoFanBoy — Sat, 10 May 2025 00:23:43 GMT

Exactly! I never understood how they got that idea. Probably they really wanted to ban couriers and used that as an excuse

Comment #19

Artist77 — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 21:55:43 GMT

Exactly. Rigging means a fixed predetermined outcome. That was not the situation here.

Comment #18

Kate — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 16:30:46 GMT

I'm glad you understand the heavy connotation that the word rigging carries! But I need to correct a couple of things that you said.

As much as buying over 99% of all possible combinations just about nearly ensures a win, it was still not a guaranteed win in the sense that they would have profited from the effort. I find myself continuously reminding people that anyone else that night had a shot at winning, which would have drastically altered the outcome.

Buying all possible combination... [ More ]

Comment #17

KY Floyd — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 20:43:09 GMT

these blanket bans. They really disenfranchise people like the elderly, the homebound, people in rural areas,

A simple solution would be for the lottery to offer online sales themselves. That would also allow them to limit sales to request that originate within the state if they have concerns about selling across state lines. They could even set up an in-house courier service and take the orders and print the actual tickets on behalf of players. As a bonus, players who have trouble playing

Comment #16

Participant — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 14:05:07 GMT

MM had invariably converted the game into a pseudo scratch-off game and in so doing concomitantly dismissed most its non or occasional scratch-off players from participating in the game. I am one of those dismissed.

Psychologically it is easier for a player to shell out $6 and buy 3 tickets at $2/line in a drawing than spend $5 for just 1 line and this element is strongly poised to degrade the courage of the chance-taker to gamble with his/her money.

With PB at $2/line I see this game as... [ More ]

Comment #15

JohnGalt3 — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 12:53:43 GMT

Megamillions needn't worry.

Their sales keep dropping. They only sold 4.6 million tickets for the April 25, 2025 draw. The jackpot rose again by $10 million. At this rate the $2.0 billion threshold will hit around October or 2026. Who knows.

Still can't quite figure out who came up the $5.00 ticket idea. Retailers don't like it. Lottery ticket buyers really don't like it, they are not buying the tickets.

Megamillions won't admit their mistake or make a change anytime soon.

I wo... [ More ]

Comment #14

Artist77 — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 09:50:49 GMT

Typical for the NYT. That is why people need to do their own research vs simply deferring to legacy media and letting legacy media do the thinking for them.

It is like the legacy media telling us the economy is crashing when the markets actually started wobbling last summer and were overdue for a correction.

Comment #13

Kate — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 02:45:02 GMT

Completely agree. I was telling Todd that as a journalist I felt my eyes roll to the back of my head seeing the word rigging in the latest NYT article. This is an interesting topic, and I absolutely love the discussion surrounding it, but I cannot stand the misconceptions and misinformation when it comes to couriers especially when a newspaper like the NYT has so many readers and such a great deal of influence.

Bonus - the subheader in said article goes like:

Texas lottery executives bles... [ More ]

Comment #12

Artist77 — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:15:16 GMT

Good job of explaining it again but a couple of members seem unable to accept or process your clear explanation. They want to spin it into an overly sensational conspiracy.

Comment #11

mypiemaster — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 23:56:33 GMT

This is completely stupid. It's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Courier services have an important role to play. If you don't like them, regulate them. What is next, banning the lottery? Really, really dumb.

Comment #10

Todd — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 23:28:11 GMT

Couriers have nothing to do with rigging a lottery (which itself is a loaded/incorrect term). I assume by rigging you mean someone buying all the possible combinations. THAT IS NOT DONE THROUGH A COURIER. It would be too expensive, because couriers charge extra money per ticket/order.

Just because Texas legislators and the New York Times are unable to differentiate between two separate concepts does not mean that we at Lottery Post cannot correctly separate these two concepts. What they do i... [ More ]

Comment #9

Participant — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 23:04:04 GMT

I agree with most of what you have said

I still think that paragraph 2 of your response: The alternative to outlawing couriers is limit their ability to print/sell tickets, limit the number of terminals, and/or limit the number of tickets a terminal can print in a day . ma

may still be defeated by the operators setting up multiple stations in different addresses and/or using an array of masked entities as pseudo-names to camouflage, cloak, disguise and conceal the real true structure of... [ More ]

Comment #8

garyo1954 — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 21:58:37 GMT

I think more states will follow suit. It comes down to having any lottery or having a flawed system which can be rigged by those with deep pockets.

The alternative to outlawing couriers is limit their ability to print/sell tickets, limit the number of terminals, and/or limit the number of tickets a terminal can print in a day.

All of these are implemented in Texas.

Better for states to do something, even if it has flaws, than to be facing lawsuits for failing to protect the interest

Comment #7

EnReval — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 19:41:14 GMT

Do you think each state should implement to purchase on their website

I mean how long have couriers been doing this since Covid

Comment #6

noise-gate — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 19:21:59 GMT

* Totally agree Todd. To deprive some elderly folk who don't have the means of getting around due to no fault of their own and robbing them of the joy they may get from playing the lottery as entertainment is heartless.

Comment #5

Todd — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:51:01 GMT

Yeah, that's why I despise these blanket bans. They really disenfranchise people like the elderly, the homebound, people in rural areas, shift workers, etc. There is no good reason to outright ban courier services. If the state wants to have some kind of regulations on courier services, that makes sense. A ban does not.

Comment #4

noise-gate — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:34:49 GMT

* l guess Indiana politicians are counting on housebound folks to ask their neighbors to run errands to purchase lottery tickets scratchers for them or call a Uber to pick them up to run to the store. One wonders which service is cheaper.

Comment #3

Participant — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 15:53:20 GMT

A smart and brilliant move by the Hoosier lawmakers.

Comment #2

EnReval — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 15:13:17 GMT

TX started something but if u don't live in state or visiting to buy

shld not play/win

Comment #1

hearsetrax — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 13:37:17 GMT

Bill banning lottery courier services passes Indiana House and Senate

Lottery Post — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 13:11:46 GMT

Legislation outlawing lottery couriers makes it to Governor's desk

By Kate Northrop

A bill banning lottery courier services passed in both the Indiana House and Senate this week, meaning there is just one more step before it officially becomes illegal to sell lottery tickets via courier companies.

Indiana legislators in the House and Senate have successfully passed House Bill 1053, which would outlaw lottery courier services outright.

On Tuesday, April 22, the Indiana Senate vote... [ More ]