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Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed the fiscal year 2025 state budget in July 2024, which includes provisions to legalize online lottery sales in the Commonwealth. La Fleur’s Magazine interviewed Mark William Bracken, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Lottery, to discuss the implications.
How long has Massachusetts been attempting to sell lottery tickets online? Was this move inevitable? If so, did you play a role in accelerating the timeline?
Bracken: I’ve been in this role for two and a half years, but the lottery and the treasurer’s office have been working on it for over a decade. Around that time, the legislature passed a commission to study the feasibility of an online lottery, made up of business owners, legislators, and a few other individuals. Their recommendation at the time was that it was inevitable, and that groundwork needed to start immediately. However, nothing materialized until this summer.
We began to gain traction about a year and a half ago when the House included it in a piece of legislation, but there was no support in the Senate. That’s when we realized that, with the House behind us, we had a chance to move forward. Before, no one was willing to push the issue. With the House on board, the Treasurer began lobbying the Governor, who also got involved. This past year, the Governor included it in her budget, marking the first time a Governor has done that. The House then included it in their budget as well, giving us two of the three necessary approvals. Through the budget process, the House worked with the Senate to pass the necessary language. And here we are.
In terms of accelerating the timeline, I’d like to think I played a role. I worked in the legislature for six years and have close relationships there. The Speaker of the House, who I worked for during those six years, has been a mentor to me and was a great partner throughout the process.
It was a combination of events—getting the Governor on board, and likely the Senate waiting for the right time. As we know in politics, everything involves trade-offs. The House wants certain initiatives, the Senate wants others, and they rarely agree upfront. It often becomes a matter of trading. Over the past two years, we were caught up in that process, and now the timing was finally right to move forward.
You’ve been very active in the news, particularly this spring, highlighting the pressure the lottery is under due to competing gambling interests—from wallet share loss to advertising costs. How crucial was this level of public advocacy?
Bracken: One of our biggest challenges here in the Commonwealth is the level of competition. It started with legalized fantasy sports and then legalized casinos. While many states have casinos, outside of Nevada, Atlantic City, and Connecticut, none have the kind of casinos we do. We have two mega casinos. For example, Encore Boston, operated by Wynn, is an exact replica of Encore Las Vegas. The gaming space, the number of tables, and the slot machines are on par with what you’d find in Las Vegas. These are not your typical regional or smaller casinos seen in most states.
Here in Boston, especially with our population concentrated in the Greater Boston area, we have this juggernaut of a casino in direct competition with the lottery. Then, we moved on to the legalization of brick-and-mortar sports betting, and a few months later, online sports betting. Pretty much every type of online gambling is now legal except for online casinos. We find ourselves in a highly competitive landscape, while we’re still mostly based on a pen-and-paper system. While we generate $6.2 billion in annual sales, our gaming and entertainment system feels antiquated.
We’ve never opposed our competition. In fact, we’ve been supportive of it. We believe we offer superior, more transparent products. Customers know exactly what they’re getting into when they play our games. Our odds and probabilities are clearly displayed for every instant and draw game, so players are fully informed about the risks. With our instant tickets, which make up 68 percent of our business, our website is updated hourly to show exactly how many prizes remain for each game. That’s a significant difference compared to sports betting or casino games.
We just want to compete fairly and equally with our counterparts. With sports betting now available online, we strongly feel this is the right time to push for an online presence as well.
It’s clear that selling lottery tickets online is an uphill battle for most states. What led to success this session? Why now? What made the difference?
Bracken: A couple of key points here. In Massachusetts, our lottery beneficiary is different from most other states. While many states allocate lottery profits to education or other specific causes, Massachusetts directs its profits to unrestricted local aid for municipalities. This means the funds are divided up and sent directly to cities and towns without restrictions on how they can be used.
The online lottery will be different. A major push, both in Massachusetts and nationally, is toward early education, particularly due to the rising costs and limited availability. The pandemic has highlighted how essential affordable childcare is for working parents. Daycare costs have skyrocketed, making it harder for parents to take jobs and ensure proper care for their children. The legislature, at least the House, decided that all profits from the online lottery would go to early education rather than municipalities. So, we have a new beneficiary partner, and all the profits will support early education initiatives. This shift helped gain support, as it’s hard to oppose a cause like early education.
Another factor is responsible gambling. Problem gambling is a serious issue, and in Massachusetts, we take it quite seriously. We have strong certifications and partnerships with the state’s problem gambling office. While problem gambling exists, the ability to direct some of the online lottery profits to early education seemed like the right thing to do.
Our vendor partners were also crucial in pushing this forward. Yes, my connections helped, but our vendors really stepped up. We worked closely with three key vendors—Pollard Banknote, Scientific Games, and NeoGames/Aristocrat Interactive—and their lobbyists. I brought all three of their presidents and lobbyists into my office at the same time, laid down the rules, and made sure they all worked together. Typically, these companies are fierce competitors, but they worked jointly on this, tag-teaming the process. Given that we’re running a $6.2 billion industry, we needed their outside help, and they provided it while adhering to strict guidelines and talking points we gave them.
We also had great support from labor unions, which was key. Many labor unions are involved in early education, and this initiative is also a job creator. Our labor union, which oversees lottery employees and represents about 9,000 members, saw this as a win-win because it benefits both the lottery and early education providers within the union. That support extended to the greater AFL-CIO, which endorsed the online lottery for the first time.
We also tried some new tactics like getting the former lieutenant governor, who has strong ties with municipalities, to write letters to editors. This was something we hadn’t done before and helped get the word out in a different way.
Another important factor is that states have been flush with pandemic-era funds, but that money is running out. As those funds dry up, states are looking for new revenue sources. An online lottery can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in profit annually, which likely helped move the legislature to pass it.
Can you discuss the interest groups that opposed the lottery selling online, and how you either placated or outmaneuvered them?
Bracken: I don’t have an answer to that because none of our opponents ever contacted us. Not once did they try to have a conversation with us or ask any questions. So, I couldn’t tell you specifically who was against this. I can only assume who was against it to the degree that they were out there lobbying and trying to do stuff, occasionally, you would hear something, but nothing concrete.
A year ago, couriers began selling lottery tickets online in Massachusetts. How will the lottery’s online offering coexist with them?
Bracken: I definitely think there’s a space for couriers in the lottery industry. Every state handles them differently—some have laws against them, while others regulate them. We fall somewhere in the middle. We treat them like any other agent partner. We don’t regulate them directly, but we do have conversations about the dos and don’ts. We’re excited to have them in this space.
They’ll soon start selling instant tickets through courier services, which is new for us. We’ve only allowed draw games up to this point because we wanted to ensure there were no complaints or issues. Now that we’ve reached a level of comfort with the couriers, we’re ready to move forward with instant tickets as well. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes, but ultimately, it’s on them to provide a good product. They charge a fee for their service, while we don’t, so they’ll need to make sure the convenience is worth it for their customers.
In a way, couriers are like the Uber Eats of lottery tickets. Just as with food delivery apps, people have options. You can either go directly to the restaurant or use a service like DoorDash or Uber Eats for the convenience of tracking your delivery. Some people prefer to have everything centralized on one app, while others might opt to buy directly from the lottery to avoid fees. It’s going to depend on individual preferences, and it may even vary by age demographic.
There’s space for everyone, and we’ll see how it plays out.
The Massachusetts Lottery already boasts one of the highest sales per capita in the world. What impact do you project online sales will have on your revenue?
Bracken: We’ve developed a 10-year projection in collaboration with our vendor partners, taking into account the Massachusetts model and looking at what other states, like Michigan, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, have done. Our goal is to create a best-case estimate of what we think we can achieve.
That said, our current estimates suggest we won’t reach Virginia’s revenue levels as quickly as they did. We’re projecting to be about a year behind them in terms of revenue growth, but we’ll have to wait and see. I’m confident in the product we’re offering, but Massachusetts is a unique market, and we don’t know exactly how our players will react. Our per capita sales are high, but that’s largely because we offer a top-quality product with our instant tickets.
eInstants are a different product and likely appeal to a different type of player. We’re hoping to tap into a new market with our online offerings while also complementing our current player base. That being said, if we’re going to do this, we have to do it right. In Massachusetts, our players are smart and they’re also unforgiving. I can’t afford to launch without a strong, attractive product right from the start.
If we don’t come out of the gate swinging with the best product and prize payouts possible, we risk losing players permanently. So, we’re going to launch with the best possible product, offering the most competitive prize payouts we can. What our players see is exactly what they’ll get—there won’t be any surprises or letdowns.
Given that Massachusetts Lottery has the smallest ad budget-to-revenue ratio in the country, if not the world, how do you plan to promote the new online channel to players?
Bracken: Fortunately for us, the current ad budget only covers our retail operations, and the funding for the online lottery is separate. So, we’ll have additional advertising funds dedicated to promoting our online products. There will be a general awareness campaign to introduce the launch of the online lottery since it’s a new offering.
However, advertising for the online lottery is different from retail lottery ads. The focus here is on player acquisition—getting players to sign up for an account. That’s really our main goal. Unlike retail lottery advertising, we don’t need to highlight specific games or tickets. It’s all about building the player base from the start.
When do you anticipate launching an online platform?
Bracken: Massachusetts tends to do things a little differently, particularly with our central gaming system. Unlike other states that rely on specific vendors to run parts of their operations, we handle everything in-house with our own staff. Most states can get up and running within six to eight months, but we anticipate a longer timeline because we still have a lot of questions about how this will all tie together. Our IT is completely in-house, so we’re aiming for around 16 months, though it could stretch to 18 depending on how things progress.
We’ve issued two RFIs: one for consultants and another for vendors currently offering platforms, just to gather insights on best practices and what we should be considering. Once we gather that information, we’ll start crafting our RFR/RFP. We’re hoping to issue that by the end of November.
Best-case scenario, we could go live by December of next year, but anywhere between December 2025 and March 2026 is a realistic timeframe. The key for us is to do this right. I don’t want to launch in phases or leave anything unfinished. When we go live, I want it to be with a full suite of options so that players know exactly what to expect from us. If that means it takes a little longer, I’m okay with that.