Online lottery launch in Mass. delayed until 2026

While the Massachusetts State Lottery already began legwork to launch the state’s first-ever online lottery platform, it won’t be quite as soon as state and lottery officials previously thought.

“Unfortunately, we have not received funding yet to do anything with online lottery,” Lottery Director Mark William Bracken told MassLive after the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce event on Tuesday morning.

State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg had discussed the future of several departments at the event, including the lottery, and the timeline for iLottery’s launch was brought up.

Online lottery was legalized in the Commonwealth on July 29. At the time, lottery officials had estimated it’d take 16 months to fully implement — meaning the platform was expected to go live by the end of 2025.

But because the necessary $2.5 million in government funding to get things started has yet to arrive — and it may not come until sometime between November and January, Bracken said, that start date has been pushed back.

“We’re waiting for the House and Senate to take that fiscal year 2024 close out budget … once we get that $2.5 million, that’s really when the 16-month clock starts ticking,” Bracken explained.

• Read more: Online Mass. State Lottery legalized, director calls it a ‘win-win’

This means iLottery may not hit the internet until April 2026.

The Lottery has already had conversations with six platforms and three game vendors as of Oct. 15, he said, and has been searching for a consulting service to continue the platform’s growth.

However, that service can’t be onboarded until the funds come through, Bracken said. The rest of the money will go toward the nearly 20 employees who will run the platform.

After the platform is live, the “funding will take care of itself,” Bracken said.

What will the online lottery look like?

Massachusetts is looking to perfect its online lottery platform for the new players who will be attracted because of the platform and for loyalists who have been buying tickets for years.

“We want this to be the best platform with the best offerings for our players, so if it does take us a little bit longer to do it, then so be it,” Bracken said.

“Our biggest fear is that a player visits, doesn’t like what they see, and never comes back … I want my player to be confident and like what they see on day one,” he said.

While there is a bid out for a third-party business to help the lottery create its platform, as it’s open to hearing if there are more secure options, both the MA Lottery app and Mass Lottery website were built with the capacity to accommodate iLottery. Bracken said this would include around 350,000 existing age-certified, authenticated players.

• Read more: iLottery in Mass. budget deal could give way to ‘modern’ experience, director says

And while there will be games like a traditional, virtual scratch ticket with a simulated scratch, Bracken said there will also be themed mini-games “that still hold true to the nature of what a scratch ticket is but it won’t be the traditional key number match.”

“It could be very similar to, say, a ‘Connect Four’ game, where symbols are going to drop down and you’re going to match connecting symbols,” he previously told MassLive. A beach-themed game, he gave as another example, could have beach ball symbols.

What are the delay’s effects?

In the agreement to legalize iLottery, $100 million of its revenue was expected to go to early childhood education and care grants in the fiscal year 2025 budget, the State House News Service reported.

If sales aren’t happening until the spring of 2026, revenue most likely won’t be seen until fiscal year 2027, which means state officials (outside of the lottery) will need to reallocate funds for the missing $100 million, the outlet reported.

The timeline and possible budget gap for the fiscal year 2025 are being tracked and childcare grants are still expected to be funded this year, a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Administration and Finance told the outlet.

Online lottery is expected to drive $70 million in revenue during its first full year of operations, Bracken said. After a decade, the platform could bring upwards of $360 million.

Since the launch of iLottery is a more passive operation, Bracken said the Massachusetts State Lottery doesn’t expect negative impacts on its internal operations from the delay of the start date.