Massachusetts has officially added an online lottery to its gaming offerings, thanks to Governor Maura Healey’s approval of the 2025 budget.
Online lottery games will not go live until 2025, giving regulators time to iron out the details surrounding the launch and minimize negative repercussions. Once it goes live, the Massachusetts online lottery market could be one of the largest in the country.
With an established sports betting market and three retail casinos, an online lottery allows Massachusetts to keep up with the nation’s rapidly modernizing gaming market.
Massachusetts online lottery could bring in $100 million annually
Massachusetts legislators have projected that an online lottery market could generate an annual revenue of $100 million now that it’s been written into the 2025 budget. While no small amount, the actual total could be much more due to the sheer size of the Massachusetts Lottery.
Peter Brennan, the Executive Director of the New England Convenience Store and Energy Marketers Association, explained that comparing Massachusetts to other online lotteries like New Hampshire is simply unfair.
“The Massachusetts Lottery is so uniquely situated — it’s so big, so successful. If you look at the revenues that the Massachusetts lottery generates compared to New Hampshire, it’s apples and oranges.”
The math backs up Brennen as well. According to USA Today data from 2022, Massachusetts residents spend more money on lottery tickets than any other state. Moreover, runner-up states aren’t even close. Each adult, on average, spent $1,037 on lottery tickets in 2022.
For comparison’s sake, Georgia came in second place with $607 spent per resident in 2022. That’s 41.5% less than the average adult in Massachusetts. In neighboring New Hampshire, the average adult spent just $415 on lottery tickets using the same data set.
How big could a Massachusetts online Lottery be?
So, how big could a Massachusetts online lottery be? Well, Georgia generated $309.9 million in 2022 through online lottery games. In 2023, New Hampshire generated about $260 million in revenue. It seems likely the $100 million in annual revenue projection was extremely conservative. The actual total could be many times higher.
As usual, detractors will claim that online options will cannibalize retailers. But that has not been the case in either Georgia or New Hampshire, where retail sales have increased with the addition of iLottery games. Pennsylvania Lottery Press Secretary Ewa Swopehe said the same is true in Pennsylvania:
“Data show the opposite is true. By selling online, we’re able to build relationships with new players, and that presents opportunities to encourage them to also visit retail stores to play our games there.”
Brennan warns that most of this data is fairly new, however. Given a long enough timeline, the trend could change:
“It seems that most people say, ‘The online lottery hasn’t diminished our sales at all in store,’ but it’s also early days for any online lottery. So it’s hard to know if, 10 years down the road, are these protections going to be enough?”
Massachusetts is looking to other states for ideas on how to regulate online lottery options
As Massachusetts regulators prepare to launch an online lottery in 2025, many are looking for direction in states that have already done so.
Christian Teja, Massachusetts Lottery Director of Communications, said it is a benefit to learn from other states before implementing regulations:
“We’ve taken notice of what’s been going on in the industry. With iLottery already having launched in a number of other states, we do have the benefit of being able to observe and hopefully learn from them.”
Massachusetts Senate President Karen Spilka said steps have already been taken to ensure the safest possible online lottery launch:
“We were able to negotiate what we believe are better protections in iLottery. We raised the age of those that could participate from 18 to 21 [years]. We prohibited predatory advertising against minors and got other controls through negotiation so we felt more comfortable with it this time.”
There could be more methods of regulation later. Some states, like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, have added voluntary self-exclusion lists that players can set for a period of time or indefinitely. North Carolina allows users to set loss limits as well as playtime notifications. The New Hampshire lottery also offers players the ability to set spending limits. And the lottery can block players from its app and website if needed.
All of those options could be considered in time, but Massachusetts Lottery Executive Director Mark William Bracken feels the lottery is already prepped to launch safely:
“We are prepared to implement a safe and reliable iLottery that will produce significant resources for critical childcare services, which are so desperately needed across the state.”
