Lottery officials moving forward, while some consumers and retailers are skeptical of the plan
If the Pennsylvania Lottery Commission has its way, the state may soon follow in the footsteps of others like California and Minnesota, in launching pump side lottery ticket sales throughout the Keystone State.
Lottery officials told a Senate committee in Harrisburg last week that kiosks will soon be available for customers to buy scratch-off tickets at the gas pump. The Lottery Commission is also looking into putting kiosks at grocery store check-out lines and state stores in an effort to sell more tickets. The expanded sales are being explored as a way to increase ticket sales in order to help meet the growing demand for senior citizens’ programs that the lottery funds.
However, according to local news reports, not all convenience retailers are pleased with the move.
“You can already pre-pay at the pump so therefore; the customers don’t come into the store. So, if they were able to play the lottery out at the pump, they definitely wouldn’t come into the store, so that is going to drop business down,” retailer Alexandrea Jarmulowski told Pittsburgh’s KDKA news.
And some consumers are simply worried that the trial-and-error of learning a new process might slow things down at the pump as customers purchase scratch-offs at the pump for the first time.
In related lottery news, Congress is currently considering H.R. 707, the Restoration of America’s Wire Act. The legislation addresses, in part, the legality of online lotteries. If lottery games were authorized for online sales, small business owners across the country — and their employees — would be adversely affected.
