Minnesota Lottery sets date for online shutdown as vendor lawsuits loom

The Minnesota Lottery has set an Aug. 31 deadline for ending f its online sales but questions remain as to how to compensate the technology vendors for early cancellation of their contracts.

In May, state legislators voted to kill off the Lottery’s online scratch tickets along with a program to sell lottery tickets at automatic teller machines and gas station pumps. On Wednesday, Lottery director Ed Van Petten told Minnesota Public Radio that the ATM/pump sales would end Aug. 29 and the online sales two days later.

The Lottery had been given until the end of September to wrap up its doomed operations but Van Petten apparently decided there was no point in dragging out the matter. Online players discovered this week that they could no longer top up their online accounts.

The Lottery originally launched an online subscription service selling traditional draw tickets in 2010. In February 2014, the site expanded into online instant-win scratch tickets, becoming the first US state lottery to offer this product, which critics have likened to online slot machines.