The Connecticut State Lottery will reinstate instant ticket vending machines throughout the state Aug. 1, hoping to resuscitate its sliding sales in the tough economy.
The machines are returning nine years after they were yanked from Connecticut stores over fears they gave minors easy access to gambling. With the reintroduction, Connecticut will be the 29th state to carry them.
The latest versions will require users to swipe a driver’s license to purchase instant tickets, making Connecticut one of only six states with age verification.
“A young person who wanted to buy a lottery ticket will need to obtain someone else’s ID. That helps to have an intermediary step,” Marvin Steinberg, executive director of the Connecticut Council for Problem Gambling, told HBJ Today. “It doesn’t solve the problem, but it adds something that is helpful.”
Instant tickets are the largest part of the Connecticut Lottery’s nearly $1 billion annual revenue.
To make budget for fiscal year 2011 that began July 1, the lottery must sell $585 million in instant tickets and will need the sales from the instant ticket vending machines (ITVMs) to realize those sales, said lottery spokeswoman Diane Patterson.
Patterson wouldn’t provide revenue figures for the ITVMs alone, but GTech Corp. – the Rhode Island company leasing the machines to Connecticut – reported a 30 percent increase in sales of instant tickets from vending machines over the past year.
Instant tickets not only comprise more than half of the lottery’s revenue, but they also make up majority of money contributed to the state’s general fund. Of the $283 million contributed to the state in 2009, $131 million came from instant tickets.
But sales of instant tickets have been slipping since its all-time peak of $619 million in 2008. Last year, instant tickets accounted for $610 million in sales and are expected to dwindle through 2011.
ITVMs last came to Connecticut in 1999 when the machines had a two-year run before then-lottery president George Wandrak said the machines produced insignificant revenue and created the perception of a problem.
The lottery still needs many of its regulatory procedures for the ITVMs approved before the machines hit stores, but the approval process shouldn’t delay the scheduled rollout of August, said Paul Young, executive director for the Connecticut Division of Special Revenue, which has authority over the lottery corporation.
“All the machines will contain an age verification device, but we want them to be within line site of an agent,” Young said.
In case a minor obtains someone else’s ID and tries to use it to buy instant tickets, each of the ITVMs come equipped with a kill button, that store personnel can activate to minimize underage access.
As part of the ITVM rollout in August, the lottery will launch a billboard campaign across the state to raise awareness on the prohibition of youth gambling.
While the anti-youth gambling measures are important, the ITVMs still sends Connecticut in the direction of having less oversight over gambling, Steinberg said. The kill button requires retailers that carry the machine to be vigilant, and the level of vigilance will vary from store to store.
Steinberg said Connecticut should conduct sting operations similar to those in which minors are purposely sent into establishments to buy tobacco and alcohol. Only then, he said, will the state know the extent of youth gambling.
Any time young people are exposed to gambling at a young age — such as when parents give instant tickets as presents — it add fuel to the fire, Steinberg said.
“Not only are they gambling, but it develops the urge to keep gambling,” Steinberg said.
