Illinois Could Be First U.S. State To Run Internet Lottery
By Sam Bakken in News on Feb 14, 2005 10:20PM
Sick and tired of waiting in line behind that diviner at the corner store? The one convinced that one of these days they'll draw his dog's birthday in the lottery and he'll finally "get out of this shit-hole"? He always enters the store with a list of numbers written on a soiled napkin. Then he places his order and pulls out his wallet, but wait, a premonition. "Shhh! Jesus is sayin' somethin'. OK, gimme three, six, nine straight box. What's that Hey-zeus? OH! And two-two-four box! Who-eee! That's the one!" Well, we're sick of him. That fucker takes forever.
Hopefully this bane of our existence will soon be extinguished thanks to a bill sponsored by Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago. Cullerton has proposed a pilot program that would allow lottery players to buy tickets over the Internet. We wonder whether the lottery patrons we have experience with own a computer or have Internet access. Isn't that why they're playing the lottery?
"I just wonder why we are passing up an opportunity to get money into the common school fund. It's not an expansion of gambling. It's legal, and it would appeal to wealthier patrons."
Don't wealthy people already have their own Internet lottery?
We can't hate too much on the lottery players since a third of what they spend goes to the Common School Fund ($570 Million in 2004). The bill has been referred to the Senate Revenue Committee and they'll discuss it Wednesday, but we don't see it moving very far from there, at least for a while. Especially since it doesn't seem like any one can get anything done on the casino tip.