Online Lottery Online enables lottery players from 45 states and the District of Columbia to play and win prizes via their computers or mobile devices. Most state-run lottery websites offer a mix of instant win scratch tickets and traditional drawing-style games with large jackpots. They also offer subscription services that allow you to play multiple drawings for a period of weeks at a time.
Online lottery websites use geolocation technology to ensure that people are playing from within their home state or country, which is required by federal law. This makes it harder for fraudsters to sell tickets to residents of other states or countries, and it helps to protect the integrity of the state’s lottery system.
Retailers who sell lottery tickets in person are carefully vetted and often undergo criminal background checks, and they must post hefty bonds to ensure that they are held accountable for any fraudulent activity. However, it is far more difficult to do this when people buy lottery tickets online and rely on retailers they don’t know.
Chelsea Turner, chief operations officer of the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health, says that since sports betting began, the number of residents calling the lottery’s gambling problem hotline or opting in to voluntary self-exclusions from betting has doubled. She calls the move to make the Lottery available online “dangerous,” and says that state leaders should invest in responsible gaming and research into the social impact of an online Lottery before proceeding.