The Massachusetts Lottery officially entered the digital world Monday with the launch of Mass. Lottery Online, the long-awaited online sales and gameplay platform that Treasurer Deborah Goldberg and other Lottery officials say is necessary for the agency to remain relevant and producing in excess of $1 billion a year in revenue in an era of widespread and convenient gambling options.
“The launch of our online platform marks an exciting new chapter for the Lottery as we continue to evolve and meet the needs of today’s players,” Goldberg, who chairs the Lottery Commission, said Monday. “Online lottery will allow us to compete on a more level playing field in the state’s gaming marketplace and sales will help make childcare more affordable for families across Massachusetts.”
Retailers for years have counted on scratch ticket and numbers game players to visit stores to buy tickets, and those options will remain available although the new online games will let players more easily purchase tickets. And the online offerings are limited to players 21 years or older, while retail sales still have a minimum age of 18 years. The revenue from the new sales will be directed towards support for early childhood education and care.
Some familiar games are available on the online platform: Mass Cash, Megabucks, Mega Millions, Powerball, and Millionaire for Life. The Lottery is keeping other offerings off of its platform, including traditional Keno, The Numbers Game and The Wheel of Luck.
Mass. Lottery Online is launching with more than 20 different “eInstant” games that serve as a digital alternative to scratch tickets. Instead of simply clicking and revealing a number, most eInstant games feature “cascading or tumbling symbols that result in instant winning experiences when a cluster of symbols match,” the Lottery said.
Players can put between 50 cents and $50 dollars on those games, which the Lottery said have a typical prize payout percentage of roughly 90%.
There are also new three- and four-digit daily numbers games called Mass 3 and Mass 4. The Lottery said it will later introduce virtual horse racing on its platform, as well as a new eInstant game every two weeks.
When they register for the platform, players will be informed they have the option to set personalized deposit and play limits. Players who do not set limits will be reminded monthly. The Lottery said its online games will feature a session timer and an in-game pop-up message after 30 minutes of play, with additional notices every 30 minutes.
Multi-factor authentication will be required for all players at their first login each day, and whenever logging in from a new device. All devices must be verified through the player’s registered email or phone, and players will only be able to sign in to their account on one device at any given time.
The House and Senate included online Lottery authorization in the fiscal year 2025 budget that Gov. Maura Healey signed in the summer of 2024. Lottery officials initially said they planned to launch their “iLottery” in late 2025, then bumped the timeline back to an April 2026 start of online sales and since then until “the summer of 2026” with no revenue expected from the new stream until the budget year that begins July 1.
While Beacon Hill has rallied around the government’s bid to get into the online lottery business, lawmakers in March turned down a gaming expansion bill that would have created a framework for internet gaming. House members of the Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies voted 11-0 to send the bill (H 4431) to study. A DraftKings officials said at a hearing in November that the bill could generate $170 million to $200 million in annual revenue for the state.
Online Lottery sales are estimated to bring in $70 million in net profit in the first year of operation, with revenue flowing into the Early Education and Care Operational Grant Fund. Treasurer Deborah Goldberg previously laid out her expectations for online Lottery revenue: more than $180 million by year three, more than $230 million in year five, and $360 million in year 10.
The five-year contract that the commission approved last summer with Aristocrat Interactive for an online lottery platform is structured around a revenue-sharing model that has not previously been used here, Lottery Executive Director Mark William Bracken said, with a maximum of 5% of revenue flowing to Aristocrat.
Casinos, the Lottery, and regulated sports betting together generated more than $1.5 billion in state revenue in fiscal year 2025 — more than what the state took in from the gas tax ($742 million), the estate tax ($517 million) cigarettes ($262 million) or alcohol ($98 million), according to MassBudget. Only the state income tax ($26.6 billion), sales tax ($9.6 billion) and taxes on corporations ($4.1 billion) brought in more to state coffers.
But as a percentage of the state budget, gambling revenue has declined over the last 25 years, the report said. In fiscal 2025, gambling revenues represented 2.23% of the state budget. That was “a considerably smaller share of the state budget” than the Mass. Lottery covered on its own in 2002, 3.71%, according to the report.
“Impressively large as the Lottery may be, its growth has slowed considerably in recent decades. Adjusting for inflation, the value of state revenue generated by the Lottery peaked in 2002 and has fallen by a third since,” MassBudget said last year.
Colin Young is the deputy editor for State House News Service and State Affairs Pro Massachusetts. Reach him at [email protected].
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