The Illinois Lottery is backtracking on a warning that it would have to stop selling tickets over the Internet.
It was only supposed to be a pilot program.
In 2011, lawmakers authorized the Illinois Lottery to sell tickets from its website, but only until March of this year
Which is why Lottery administrators issued an alert last month when state lawmakers recessed without reauthorizing the program.
They'd have no choice, but to stop selling tickets online, the Lottery warned. That's a tiny fraction -- not even one percent of sales -- but worth more than $10 million dollars last year, at a time Illinois needs all the money it can get. Lawmakers' lack of action put an "important funding source in jeopardy," the agency warned.
Instead March came and went and online sales never stopped.
The Lottery says it "conducted a detailed review of relevant policies, rules, and laws and determined that continued Internet ticket sales are permissible under current law.”
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