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Measure Limiting Lottery Sales, Advertising Fails

Special Report - July 22, 2009
The North Carolina Senate has rejected a House bill that would have prohibited the sale of lottery tickets at check-cashing businesses, and prevented the state from advertising the lottery at high school sporting events. HB 1289—No Lottery at Check Cashing Sites/High School Ads—which was sponsored by Representatives Pricey Harrison (D–Guilford), Susan Fisher (D-Buncombe), Marvin Lucas (D-Cumberland), and Ruth Samuelson (R-Mecklenburg)—failed on second reading in the Senate by a vote of 20 to 23, after being approved by the House in May. The measure would have prevented the sale of lottery tickets at businesses whose primary revenue comes from “the cashing of checks, drafts or money orders.” It also specified that, “no advertising or sponsorship may take place in connection with any high school sport or high school sporting event or be placed in any high school sporting venue.”

“It is unfortunate that gambling supporters would have the last say in a bill designed to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens,” said Bill Brooks, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council. “Just because North Carolina has gone into the gambling business through a state lottery doesn’t mean that everything the lottery commission wants to do should be allowed by the General Assembly, which has the ultimate responsibility of oversight of this activity in our state.”