Online Lottery Ticket Sales Set for Debate in Florida
Selling state lottery tickets online instead in shops will always be a controversial move opposed by convenience store owners, who fear it will cost them frequent customers. Democrat Senator Gwen Margolis has made the first move in Florida, introducing a bill to the state Senate. If approved Florida will be the eight US state to take its state lottery ticket sales online.
State’s convenience store owners fear that Margolis’ SB120, will strip them from regular ticket-buying customers who also buy other products whilst in their shops. There are already signs of opposition to SB120 by the gambling activists predicting that online sales represent the danger of greater compulsive gambling numbers, due to using a credit card which distorts players’ perception of the value of money.
Sen. Margolis says that she would rather see lottery tickets sold online than in large casinos in the state, something which Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. has been agitating for. Margolis’ proposal is dubbed as very economical with words, it merely suggests an age limit and then leaves everything else to whoever regulates the service.