Lottery news from http://www.dailynewstribune.com/
WALTHAM -- State lottery officials would like to better the odds of a 20-something playing the Numbers Game, and a Waltham company thinks the best place to look for younger gamblers is online.
If state officials follow the advice of Waltham-based GameLogic, Inc., they might be surprised: the average online game-player is female; is under 50; and spends 50 minutes a day playing online "casino-style" games, according to John Taylor, president of GameLogic.
"You can’t deny the numbers," Taylor said. "People feel very comfortable playing games on the Internet."
The games "people" are playing are typical of casinos -- slots, poker and blackjack, for example -- but do not involve betting. GameLogic hopes to change that.
Currently, U.S. law prohibits online gambling. Those who wish to play via the Internet for money must go to sites operated by off-shore companies. A GameLogic technology called "PlayAway" creates the illusion of online gambling, while keeping all the action safely within the casino or the corner lottery agent.
A gambler buys a ticket at a lottery agent or casino. The result is already determined, but the ticket-holder must play through a series of online games to find out what they may have won. They then go back to the point of sale to claim any winnings.
One online game site, pogo.com, boasts 14 million users a month. Sixty-five percent are female, and most are between the ages of 18 and 49, Taylor said. The site’s most prolific players are online 18 hours a week, and that could explain a perceived fall-off in lottery play among the younger population, he said.
"There’s erosion because people are doing that on the Internet," Taylor said. "If they’re spending 18 hours a week online, you know they’re not doing something else that someone formerly valued them doing."
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