Lottery Tickets Sold after the Featured Prize is Claimed : Will the Courts Force the Practice to be Stopped?

In the past few years, several different people sued state-run lotteries in a variety of jurisdictions for selling tickets after awarding the grand prize of a particular game. The players challenged the practice by many of the 42 state-run lotteries that offer and allow vendors to continue to sell scratch-off or instant win tickets despite someone else already receiving the top prize. Some media sources estimate that over half of the nation's lotteries follow this practice to some extent or another. States like Colorado, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, and Tennessee deem this policy acceptable for a variety of reasons including the fact that they notify the players of these practices via the internet, by disclosures on the back of the ticket, or as allowed through state approved operational regulations. According to the Executive Director of the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, the difficulty in determining when to discontinue the sale of tickets for a particular game stems from the number and size of lower tier prizes available for award. Officials in Colorado close a particular game after awarding the last top prize unless a “significant number” of lower tier prizes remain. In other states, negative publicity generated by lawsuits trying to stop the practice forced a shift in the government's policy. California, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia follow a strict guideline where they terminate the game upon someone winning the last grand prize and notify retailers to stop selling the tickets. Similarly in Texas, the lottery officials voluntarily decided to go along with the more stringent approach after a state senator introduced legislation to compel the practice; and Arizona changed its procedures after a gubernatorial candidate made it an issue during the 2000 election campaign. This paper begins by briefly covering the importance and history of lotteries in the United States. Then, an overview of deceptive lotteries and the policies that created them during the nation's past gets explored in Section III. Following the past policies, Section IV examines the holdings from courts that already generated opinions regarding the sale of lottery tickets after someone wins the main prize. Finally, the public policy implications as to how and why a state-run lottery may choose to continue or cease this type of practice will be analyzed