New law could affect Illinois Lottery

The proposed bill would stop the lottery from selling tickets after the top prizes are gone.

US.- A bill introduced in the state would change how the Illinois Lottery currently operates, as it would have to provide constant updates on how many top prizes remain in scratch-off games. It would also establish that the lottery would not be able to offer tickets for those games once the prizes are gone.

The bill introduced by Senator Steve Stadelman comes after an investigation revealed that the lottery was still selling instant games for weeks or months even after the top prizes had been claimed, with little or no warning to players. “The article really motivated me to take a look at the lottery’s policies and procedures. At the very least, what the lottery has been doing is horrible optics. It doesn’t inspire trust among players, and if the optics aren’t good, that doesn’t help the lottery in its long-term goals of having a game that people enjoy and ultimately raises money for the state.”

The investigation showed that from November to March, more than 3 million tickets were sold (which gave them more than US$20 million combined) for games that no longer had a top prize in place, Lottery Post reported. “The bottom line is transparency. The lottery needs to be as transparent as possible so people believe there is integrity in the game, because if there’s no trust, that’s going to hurt their ability to sell tickets,” said Stadelman.