The Northeast Now a Hotspot for Online Lotteries

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Wednesday, March 21st, 2018 | Written by Shane Larson

The Northeastern United States has become one of the country’s biggest hotspots for gambling, with all nine states barring New Hampshire and Vermont offering commercial or tribal casinos, and lottery options available throughout the whole region. Furthermore, online lotteries have already been introduced, or are expected to be so soon in several states, while legalized daily fantasy sports have been accepted everywhere except for Rhode Island.

Helping to drive forward The Northeast’s gambling market is a higher level of competition caused by so many states being located within such a small geographic region. As a result, the Northeast is increasingly being viewed as an important catalyst for helping to drive forward a gambling expansion across the country.

Lottery Games

Currently all the states located in the country’s Northeast offer lottery games, namely Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont in the New England region; and New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania in the Mid-Atlantic.

To date, however, Illinois, Michigan, Georgia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire are the country’s only states to offer lottery sales via the internet, while online subscriptions have been authorized in a further five states, namely New York, North Dakota, Maine, Virginia, and North Carolina.

Lottery Ruling and Online Gambling

Interestingly, it was New York and Illinois that initially facilitated this online lottery expansion after requesting legal clarity from the Department of Justice concerning the online lottery subscription services they offered. This then led onto the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel giving its landmark legal opinion of 2011 which not only paved the way for online subscription sales, but also for all types of online gambling after proposing that the 1961 Wire Act only applied to sports betting.

Northeast Now Leading Expansion

In 2012, Illinois and Georgia became the first states to start selling lottery tickets online, as opposed to just offering an online subscription service. They were then followed by Minnesota and Michigan in 2014, although the former has since revoked its service, with Kentucky then joining the bandwagon in 2016.

While the initial expansion was led by Midwest and Southeast states, in 2017 two Northeast states started offering online lottery sales, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, with New Jersey that year also authorizing a kind of de facto online lottery service through a courier, ultimately providing an alternative path to an online lottery expansion in the country.

This year, three other Northeastern states have also been touted as possible candidates to adopt online lotteries, namely Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Other iGaming Activities

In the meantime, here is a brief summary of some of the other gambling activities available to state residents in the region:

New Jersey

In 1976, New Jersey became the second state to launch a casino market, and in recent times has been proactive in its efforts to expand its gambling industry. In 2013, it followed in the footsteps of Nevada and Delaware by offering legal internet gambling, and these days it has also legalized daily fantasy sports, and is currently spearheading efforts to have the federal ban on sports betting overturned in the Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania

In October 2017, Pennsylvania complimented its commercial casino operation by introducing a sweeping expansion bill which now sees the state offering a wide range of gambling products, including online gambling, daily fantasy sports, and sports betting, should the PASPA case receive a favorable outcome this summer.

New York

In 2013, New York approved a casino expansion allowing seven integrated resorts to be built in the state, in addition to the tribal casinos already operating there. A daily fantasy sports bill is still awaiting approval from tribal gaming interests, though, while sports betting and online poker possibilities are also being explored.

Connecticut

Connecticut currently allows just tribal casinos, although in 2017 it legalized DFS and sports betting, and is also considering extending its casino market to commercial operators.

Remaining States

In the meantime, all the remaining northeastern states, with the exception of New Hampshire and Vermont, have either tribal casinos, commercial casinos, or both, while all of the states have passed daily fantasy sports bills. Finally, states seriously considering online gambling legalization includes Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.