ANNAPOLIS – Lottery players could buy up to a year’s worth of Lotto or Big Game tickets on credit under a bill in the Maryland General Assembly that would ease a restriction against credit card use.
The lottery association said the change will make it easier for players to buy and renew subscriptions – memberships that provide three, six or 12 months of play in either jackpot game for a single fee. Critics said credit card use could encourage players, especially teen-agers and poor people, to spend money they don’t have.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Thomas Bromwell, D-Baltimore County, was created by the Maryland State Lottery Association and is on Thursday’s Senate Finance Committee agenda.
“We obviously don’t want this to be controversial,” said state lottery director Buddy Roogow. He said the bill would apply to a small percentage of sales and is designed to make purchases easier, not to bring in more money.
“The lottery has no intention – not now or in the future – to solicit the ability to use credit cards to purchase any of the daily games,” Roogow said.
Daily games such as Pick 3, Pick 4 and the scratch-off games make up the bulk of ticket sales. “We have no intention of opening that box,” he said.
The Maryland bill could be the first in the nation to ease the restrictions, according to the publisher of an industry magazine that keeps track of lottery statistics.
“As far as we know there is no other lottery accepting credit card purchases in the U.S.,” said Bruce LaFleur, co-publisher of LaFleur’s Magazine.
Gambling opponents said any easing of the ban is a bad idea. Critics have charged that allowing people to play on credit, even in limited amounts, could encourage addiction and debt.
“I am absolutely opposed to it,” said Barbara Knickelbein, Maryland coordinator for the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion. “The people who can least afford it, this will make it easier for them. Our leaders should not be leading others down a slippery slope.”
Valerie C. Lorenz, executive director of the Compulsive Gambling Center in Baltimore, worries that allowing credit card use will make it easier for teen- agers to buy tickets since they are often courted by credit card companies.
“This is so outrageous, so unconscionable it’s unbelievable,” she said. “That the government would promote gambling to this point . . . is a violation of political responsibility.”
The lottery has about 50,000 subscribers, who account for less than 1 percent of sales, Roogow said. Subscriptions made up $5 million of the last year’s record $1.2 billion revenue.
“We are talking very, very small numbers here,” Roogow said. “This is not a way for us to find substantial new sales. It’s not going to result in that.”
He also said that people who buy lottery subscriptions tend not to play the daily games, although his staff has not collected data on the subject.
Lorenz said she has watched gambling expand in the state since 1972 and doesn’t believe credit card use will stop if it is allowed to start.
“Once they have it one way they’ll have it another,” she said.
To buy a subscription, players fill out a form and mail it to lottery headquarters in Baltimore with a check or money order. They get a membership card with their numbers on it a few weeks later, and those numbers are played in every drawing. Players don’t have to follow the drawings; the lottery sends any winnings automatically and calls them if they win a jackpot.
Credit card transactions would speed the process, Roogow said. Customers would submit their credit card number with the application form.
Federal law prohibits lottery transactions over phone lines, so phone and Internet sales are not planned, he added.
“This is primarily for player convenience,” he said.
Another lottery bill, also sponsored by Bromwell and scheduled for a hearing next week, would allow Maryland to enter into additional multi-state or even multi-national lotteries.
Maryland is a member of one partnership, the nine-state Big Game lottery.
Larger lotteries produce larger jackpots and higher revenues, although no state has joined an international lottery so far.
Maryland has no plans for new partnerships but the lottery association wants that flexibility in the future, Roogow said.
“There has been talk of an international game,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s going to reach fruition at all. There is no plan at this time.”
The lottery industry evolves like any other business said David Gale, executive director of the North American Association for State and Provincial Lotteries. He said people have grown accustomed to the convenience of credit, and lottery partnerships continue to grow.
“It’s just the way the world is evolving right now,” he said. “It’s important for the lottery to keep abreast of consumer trends.”