NY lottery considers selling Powerball tickets

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York lottery hopes to start selling Powerball lottery tickets to boost revenue for the cash-strapped state.

New York is already part of the multistate Mega Millions game. The Legislature recently authorized another multi-jurisdictional game as a way to help close gaps in the state budget.

Lottery officials said it could take up to a year to get Powerball operating in New York. The state Division of Budget estimates Powerball sales could produce $11 million for the state in the 2009-10 fiscal year, and $21 million a year after that.

Lottery spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said Wednesday that New York and the other 11 Mega Millions states, including Massachusetts and New Jersey, are discussing the possibilities.

The states are working with Powerball’s governing body, the Multi-State Lottery Association, to get approval to sell tickets for both games, she said. The goal is to give all the states that carry one of the games the option to sell both.

New Yorkers can now go to nearby Connecticut, Vermont or Pennsylvania to play Powerball, which is drawn on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Mega Millions drawings are Friday and Tuesday. Each state collects a percentage of the money from tickets sold within its borders.

Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association in Iowa, said Wednesday that the association and New York are “doing some talking and exploring future possible connections. We’re at a learning stage.”

Strutt said he was unaware of the change in New York’s law, but that doesn’t change the status of the discussions and nothing is definite yet.

“As a Powerball state, we’re still just evaluating and investigating the options,” said Elizabeth Brassell, a spokeswoman with the Pennsylvania state lottery. She said her understanding is that Powerball states might also be allowed to sell Mega Millions tickets.

Calls to the Vermont and Connecticut lotteries were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Despite the revenue potential, some worry that New York’s move to expand lottery ticket sales is promoting more gambling without dedicating enough resources to treat the problems it creates.

“Before you start expanding gambling, you need to do a social impact study … to see what’s happening to the people involved in state-sponsored gambling,” said James Maney, executive director of the New York Council on Problem Gambling.

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Associated Press Writer Michael J. Crumb contributed to this report from Des Moines, Iowa.