Campaign against Massachusetts online lottery ticket sales

Massachusetts media reports have quoted the action group Save Our Neighborhood Coalition as claiming that a poll shows that 80 percent of respondents are against state Treasurer Deb Goldberg’s initiative to take lottery ticket sales and games online.

However, the Coalition gave no details of who commissioned the poll, who conducted it, how many people were polled and what methodology was used, straining the credibility of the group’s claims that too much could go wrong, minors could gamble, banking information could be stolen and problem gambling issues exacerbated.

The poll allegedly also showed that 90 percent of respondents are against allowing lottery players to pay for online lottery games with credit cards or electronic transfers, and the Coalition additionally claimed without substantiation that online gambling could threaten more than 7,500 local businesses that serve as lottery outlets.

The Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which represents brick-and-mortar lottery ticket sellers and may be behind this story, told media that scratch-ticket sales showed a year-over-year decline in December.

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