{"id":31818,"date":"2022-02-28T15:39:10","date_gmt":"2022-02-28T21:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31818"},"modified":"2022-03-04T16:42:28","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T22:42:28","slug":"bill-would-allow-lottery-ticket-vending-machines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31818","title":{"rendered":"Bill would allow lottery ticket vending machines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lottery tickets could be sold through vending machines under a bill considered Feb. 28 by the General Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Eliot Bostar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lincoln Sen. Eliot Bostar said he introduced LB1268 to bring Nebraska in line with other states. Forty-two of the 45 states that have a state lottery allow tickets to be sold in vending machines, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLottery machines are stand-alone and secure. They are age-controlled and require a valid driver\u2019s license with a bar code to be scanned to verify the purchaser\u2019s age,\u201d Bostar said.<\/p>\n

Rich Otto, testifying on behalf of the Nebraska Retail Federation and the Nebraska Grocery Industry Association, spoke in support of the bill, saying it would lessen the burden on staff at retail outlets and make transactions easier for customers.<\/p>\n

Mike Baumgartner, director for Nebraska\u2019s Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education, also testified in support of LB1268. He said Nebraska\u2019s Community College Gap Assistance Program receives between $11 million and $13 million a year in lottery proceeds \u2014 money that is used to fund scholarships for lower-income Nebraskans. Allowing lottery vending machines would generate an estimated additional $250,000 for the program, Baumgartner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLottery funds are very important to addressing college affordability in Nebraska,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pat Loontjer of Gambling With the Good Life testified in opposition to the bill. She said lottery vending machines would expand gambling in Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they talk about increased revenue, they\u2019re talking about money that is going to be lost by families and children,\u201d Loontjer said.<\/p>\n

Nate Grasz of the Nebraska Family Alliance also spoke in opposition, saying low-income Nebraskan\u2019s would be hurt most by the increased ease of buying lottery tickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lottery loves poverty,\u201d Grasz said. \u201cThe poorest third of Americans buy more than half of all lottery tickets, which is why states advertise so aggressively in poor neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on LB1268.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lottery tickets could be sold through vending machines under a bill considered Feb. 28 by the General Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[264],"class_list":["post-31818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-affairs","tag-sen-eliot-bostar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31818"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31973,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31818\/revisions\/31973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}