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The Minnesota Lottery has set an Aug. 31 deadline for ending f its online sales but questions remain as to how to compensate the technology vendors for early cancellation of their contracts.
In May, state legislators voted to kill off the Lottery’s online scratch tickets along with a program to sell lottery tickets at automatic teller machines and gas station pumps.
On Wednesday, Lottery director Ed Van Petten told Minnesota Public Radio that the ATM/pump sales would end Aug. 29 and the online sales two days later.
The Lottery had been given until the end of September to wrap up its doomed operations but Van Petten apparently decided there was no point in dragging out the matter.
Online players discovered this week that they could no longer top up their online accounts.
The Lottery originally launched an online subscription service selling traditional draw tickets in 2010. In February 2014, the site expanded into online instant-win scratch tickets,
becoming the first US state lottery to offer this product, which critics have likened to online slot machines.
State politicians expressed outrage that they hadn’t been asked to officially authorize the Lottery’s online expansion and set about to remind Van Petten who was boss.
Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the resulting anti-online bill after last year’s legislative session had wrapped, which bought the online sales another year of life.
But legislators wouldn’t’ fall for that trick a second time and Dayton reluctantly let their second attempt become law this spring.
SOURCE AND FULL STORY HERE
In May, state legislators voted to kill off the Lottery’s online scratch tickets along with a program to sell lottery tickets at automatic teller machines and gas station pumps.
On Wednesday, Lottery director Ed Van Petten told Minnesota Public Radio that the ATM/pump sales would end Aug. 29 and the online sales two days later.
The Lottery had been given until the end of September to wrap up its doomed operations but Van Petten apparently decided there was no point in dragging out the matter.
Online players discovered this week that they could no longer top up their online accounts.
The Lottery originally launched an online subscription service selling traditional draw tickets in 2010. In February 2014, the site expanded into online instant-win scratch tickets,
becoming the first US state lottery to offer this product, which critics have likened to online slot machines.
State politicians expressed outrage that they hadn’t been asked to officially authorize the Lottery’s online expansion and set about to remind Van Petten who was boss.
Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the resulting anti-online bill after last year’s legislative session had wrapped, which bought the online sales another year of life.
But legislators wouldn’t’ fall for that trick a second time and Dayton reluctantly let their second attempt become law this spring.
SOURCE AND FULL STORY HERE
