Massachusetts’ new iLottery has become a fast seller and a political problem. The online lottery drew 187,000 registered users and $119 million in wagers in just a month, after more than $1.6 million was staked on opening day. State lottery officials hailed it as the most successful online lottery launch in US history.
What has prompted the backlash is how some of the games look. At least three of the platform’s 20-plus new eInstant titles, “The Claw,” “Prize Chickens” and “The Lamp,” use cartoon animals and arcade-style prizes, and the Globe described them as resembling children’s games. “The Claw” mirrors a grocery-store crane machine, “Prize Chickens” features animated birds with flying eggs and feathers, and “The Lamp” uses genie imagery reminiscent of Disney’s Aladdin.
That design has drawn comparisons to “Joe Camel,” the cigarette mascot once used by R.J. Reynolds.
The sharper criticism concerns the app’s free demonstration mode. The Globe reported that anyone can try the arcade-style games without verifying age, even though real-money wagering requires identity checks and the legal online gambling age in Massachusetts is 21. Lottery officials said unverified users are allowed to play in demonstration mode so they can learn the mechanics, but they insisted no one can place a wager without completing verification.
According to the Lottery spokeswoman, Massachusetts uses what she called the “most stringent standard” of any US online lottery. Players must provide a full Social Security number, legal name, date of birth and address, and their accounts are protected by multifactor authentication, verification of new devices and a one-device login limit.
Les Bernal of Stop Predatory Gambling called the approach “deliberately hooking young people on an extremely addictive product.” Elizabeth Dionne, the Republican candidate for state treasurer, accused the five-member Lottery Commission of predatory marketing and demanded that the state remove the arcade-style games, add age checks for free play and order an independent review.
State Representative Adam Scanlon also said the commission should face stricter oversight. He said the lack of age verification for free versions was a “glaring oversight,” while Tackey Chan warned that the cartoonish designs blur the line between youth entertainment and gambling.
Bay Staters spent an average of $839 per person on traditional lottery tickets in 2022, almost triple the national average of $293, and last fiscal year the lottery generated $5.9 billion in revenue and more than $1 billion in local funding for all 351 cities and towns.
There is also evidence of a broader underage-gambling problem. State youth health surveys show that the share of high school students who said they played the lottery rose from 28% in 2021 to 37% in 2025, while the middle school figure rose from 29.4% to 32%. Regulators also reported 171 instances of underage users accessing sports betting sites last year.
Massachusetts lawmakers authorized the iLottery two years earlier in part to keep pace with online sports betting. The games are supplied by NeoGames Studio, part of Aristocrat Interactive, and under a five-year contract awarded last August the company receives a percentage of the amounts wagered.
Treasurer Deborah Goldberg and the Lottery Commission did not directly answer questions about how games are selected and reviewed for age appropriateness. The month-old platform is still being evaluated and modifications are under consideration.
