Yes, Massachusetts iLottery Will Include ‘Wide Variety Of Instant Game Options’

When Massachusetts launches its online lottery platform around December 2025, it will offer both draw games — like Powerball, Mega Millions, and Mass Cash — and digital e-instant games, which resemble online slot machines in gameplay.

That was confirmed to Lottery Geeks by Christian Teja, communications director of the Massachusetts Lottery, on Tuesday.

“Offerings will include draw games as well as a wide variety of instant game options,” Teja said.

Massachusetts officially cleared the way for an online lottery in late July when Gov. Maura Healey approved the state’s 2025 budget — which had language authorizing an iLottery.

Analyzing the vague iLottery language in the budget

There was never a doubt that online draw games would be a part of Massachusetts’ library.

However, industry watchdog Steve Ruddock highlighted in a recent Straight to the Point newsletter that the budget’s language related to iLottery was ambiguous. It never explicitly stated what types of games would be allowed.

Instead, it consistently referred to the online lottery offerings with these three terms:

“Lottery tickets, games or shares online.”

Ruddock suggested perhaps some lawmakers would be surprised to learn they approved games other than draw games like Powerball — that maybe they weren’t aware they were approving online lottery games similar to the slot machines you’d find at online casinos, which aren’t currently legal in Massachusetts.

None of the 14 members of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, which hashed out the final 2025 budget, that Lottery Geeks reached out to responded to requests for comment.

However, several factors indicate lawmakers knew what they were voting for.

First, although vague, the language can be reasonably interpreted to include e-instants.

One can logically assume “lottery tickets” refers to the basic ticket draw games, like Powerball, Mega Millions, or Mass Cash.

“Games,” then, can be assumed to mean the online versions of other lottery games. So, scratchers. And the online version of scratchers? Digital e-instants.

Lawmakers knew what they were voting for

Also, on July 19, when Rep. Aaron Michlewitz presented the budget to the House for final approval, he said: “This budget will allow for our lottery products to be sold online.”

“Our lottery products” feels like a catch-all term that would include online versions of all their current retail lottery products, which would include scratchers.

More proof that’s what the authorization language meant: Massachusetts Lottery Executive Director Mark William Bracken publicly told MassLive in July that there would be online scratch games. There’s no reason to believe he’d publicly declare certain games would be offered if he thought he’d be blindsiding the lawmakers who approved the budget.

“One would be your traditional scratch ticket, and the online version will have a simulated scratch, so the play mechanics will be very similar to an instant scratch ticket,” Bracken told MassLive.

“It could be very similar to, say, a ‘Connect Four’ game, where symbols are going to drop down, and you’re going to match connecting symbols.”

‘Length of play’ and ‘characteristics of games’

And finally, part of the language authorizing an online lottery includes this section:

“The lottery shall supply the department of public health with (anonymized) customer tracking data collected or generated by the online lottery” that includes “frequency of play, length of play, speed of play, denomination of play, amounts wagered and, if applicable, characteristics of games.”

Terms like speed of play, length of play, and characteristics of games logically apply much more to digital e-instant games than they would to draw games.

Massachusetts will become the 15th U.S. jurisdiction (including Washington, D.C.) with some sort of state-run online lottery offerings. And it will become the 11th of those markets with digital instant games in its library. 

Connecticut offers online draw games and keno but not instants, and New York, North Dakota, and Maryland offer online subscriptions to purchase draw game tickets in bulk.