The Wyoming Senate has advanced a bill that would allow the state to have a lottery.
House Bill 77 says the state lottery would include “any game of chance approved by the board” and would include a state lottery or multi-state game such as the Powerball, but would not include instant tickets, scratch-off tickets, or video lottery terminals.
Wyoming currently has no game of this nature and residents who do play the lottery have to go to neighboring states such as Colorado to purchase their tickets, spending money that could be spent in Wyoming, supporters of the bill say.
Sen. Bruce Burns, R-Sheridan, says that a lottery could bring up to $25 million a year to Wyoming.
The bill outlines how the lottery would be set up, which would include establishing the Wyoming Lottery Corporation.
A board of nine directors would govern the corporation. The directors would be appointed by the governor and would be “prominent persons in their businesses or professions and not have any felony convictions,” the bill states.
Some representatives had some concerns about the funding for a state lottery.
Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, estimated that there would be an estimated $19 million in annual proceeds leftover after the program was funded. The bill says 45 percent of those proceeds would go to prize money which would leave more than $10 million to administer the program, according to the Associated Press.
“If that is correct, what are we going to spend that $10.5 million on?” Hicks questioned.
Other skeptics were also concerned about how the lottery would be handled even with a board of directors, including the salaries of the directors.
Sen. Phil Nicholas, R-Laramie, was particularly concerned about who would have access to the Wyoming Lottery Corporation’s records.
“Ultimately, you’re saying, ‘here guys, you get the status of a quasi-public entity, we’re not going to look at your salaries, we’re not going to look at your expenses,’” he said. “Where’s the regulatory aspect of this, where does it begin and where does it end?”
Some were also concerned about how the lottery might create more issues, such as divorce and crime caused by gambling addictions, even with about $200,000 of the proceeds going to the Wyoming Department of Health to treat gambling addictions.
While the bill has not yet been passed into law, it did survive its second reading in the Senate on Thursday and will continue to be debated.
