A bipartisan group of Colorado legislators on Friday filed a bill to block online lottery ticket sales even as the formulates its plan with the support of Gov. Jared Polis.

The online ticket sales are necessary to increase revenue for the lottery’s mission to fund outdoor recreation and wildlife, Colorado Lottery director Tom Seaver said.

​​”Governor Polis continues looking for opportunities to expand the lottery, which allows Coloradans to support great organizations like , which funds parks, trails, recreation, open space, wildlife projects and increases access to the outdoors,” Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama said in a statement. “The governor is supportive of increasing consumer convenience and internet freedom.”

The lottery also plans to reverse a longstanding policy that prohibits people from buying tickets with credit cards at retail outlets, such as convenience stores, as it rolls out the online ticket sales, Seaver said.

The bill, , would prohibit that change because Coloradans do not need to go into credit card debt while playing lottery games, said Sen. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, who is one of the bill’s sponsors.

The legislators also believe their bill is necessary to prevent people from becoming addicted to gambling, a problem that has grown since Colorado legalized sports betting in 2020. Lottery tickets sold online in other states resemble web-based slot machines, Bridges said.

Online gambling involving traditional casino games such as slot machines, blackjack and roulette is often referred to as iGaming.

“If you look at what these online scratch ticket companies do, it is iGaming,” Bridges said. “The state not only should not be participating in that, but they shouldn’t be pushing it with more than $10 million in advertising. This is iGaming sponsored by the state to the benefit of the state at a time when Coloradans can’t afford to live here.”

However, the lottery needs to increase revenue to support Great Outdoors Colorado and other programs that protect and promote outdoor recreation, Seaver said. He also said that lottery players are asking for more convenient ways to play the games.

“We can’t sit still and meet our numbers,” Seaver said. “We have to keep growing in order to meet the needs of our recipients.”

Great Outdoors Colorado, a trust fund created in 1992, receives 50% of the lottery’s profits to fund outdoor preservation projects. The receives another 40% of lottery sales, and gets a 10% cut.

But the funding structure for Great Outdoors Colorado is the primary reason the lottery wants to boost sales, Seaver said.

The amount of money Great Outdoors Colorado receives is capped each year, based on a formula involving the Consumer Price Index, and the surplus money is doled out to various organizations, including the for school construction and the for youth programs.

In 2025, however, the cap was not met, and those other groups did not receive lottery funding.

The Colorado Lottery needs to increase revenue, and Seaver sees online sales as a way to get there.

“We have to keep growing in order to meet the needs of recipients,” he said.

The lottery wants to open its online ticket sales by selling the products already offered, including Lotto, Powerball and Mega Millions tickets, as well as various scratch-off games, Seaver said. The plans are still in the developmental phase, so it is unclear exactly how those products would be sold online and delivered to customers.

It is also too early to determine whether the lottery would offer digital scratch-ticket sales and what those games would look like.

“We are a long way from saying what kind of game we would bring,” Seaver said. “From my perspective, you start slow with what kind of games you are going to bring and then progress.”

Back-door path to legalized iGaming?

However, critics are warning that Colorado’s creation of online lottery ticket sales could create a back-door entry to online, casino-style gambling, and that addictive behavior will increase because people can play on their cellphones while charging their credit cards.

Those critics point toward the and its online games, such as Lucky Coins Disco Pig and Pantheon of Olympus Lightning. In those games, players enter a credit card and can play as many times as they want, punching buttons to line up icons such as Greek coins or disco balls to win money. The games feature cartoon drawings and music.

The supports the Colorado bill because the group opposes online casino games, said Oliver Barie, the organization’s government relations director.

The association, which is backed by traditional casinos, including Monarch Casino in Black Hawk, and the state’s casino towns, fears an online lottery will lead to state-sponsored digital casino games.

“We’ve seen other states, where oftentimes the first step is you have online lottery sales,” Barie said. “Depending on the iLottery platform, you could have a traditional ticket on your phone or games that look and feel a lot like a slot machine. That����ap where our concerns are.”

Barie conducted by the association that showed a majority of respondents in Colorado opposed a lottery expansion, purchases charged to credit cards and 18-year-olds playing lottery games online.

Internet casino games often involve bright colors, music and cartoon characters that create a “stimulus reward loop” that increases the risk of addiction, said Jamie Glick, president of the .

“Essentially, what that means is the quicker you can interact with a game and get a response back, the higher the likelihood of addiction,” Glick said. “Those games, just from an addiction standpoint, brain chemistry standpoint, they play like iGaming.”

Glick also said he is concerned that online lottery games could appeal to children because they resemble video games. Online games often ask players to scan driver’s licenses to verify their ages, but Glick said young people find ways to circumvent those rules.

“We certainly don’t think there should be any gambling that could attract younger users,” he said.

Finally, allowing credit card sales increases the risk of addiction because it makes it easier for people to keep playing, Glick said.

“One thing I’m not neutral on is gambling on credit, just because that’s one of the biggest risk factors in developing a gambling problem and also disrupting your life through gambling, when you’re gambling with money that you don’t have,” he said.

Seaver said that the lottery would create guardrails and limits for people playing online.

“We’re not the first to the dance on this, and that’s fine,” Seaver said. “We wanted to see how other states managed the product and responsible gambling over the past few years.”

The lottery will not introduce credit card sales until a comprehensive player health program is established, said Meghan Dougherty, a Colorado Lottery spokeswoman.

“At the same time, when this option is available, it will allow players to use the payment method of their choice,” she said.

Lottery tickets already available online

Colorado residents already can buy state lottery tickets online through third-party vendors, known in the industry as couriers.

Four companies offer online ticket sales in Colorado. Their operations are similar to how DoorDash and Instacart allow people to order food and groceries over their phones or computers, except people do not receive a physical ticket at their doorsteps.

The Colorado Lottery does not license or regulate couriers, Dougherty said. The couriers have agreements with brick-and-mortar stores, and those stores are subject to rules that allow them to partner with couriers.

On , one of the companies doing business in Colorado, players pay a convenience fee on their purchases. For example, Colorado residents on Friday could buy a $5 Orange Cash scratch ticket for $6.50 or a $2 Powerball ticket for $2.50.

Lotto.com owns a convenience store on Wadsworth Boulevard called Players Cafe, said Tom Metzger, the website’s chief executive officer.

There, people can buy lottery tickets or traditional convenience store items. The online sales are routed to that store, where employees scan tickets sold at the store and then send pictures to players to confirm their purchases and log their serial numbers.

If someone buys a scratch ticket, Lotto.com puts a “digital cover” over the numbers so the player can simulate scratching off the latex of a paper ticket with their fingers.

Prize money is deposited into an online wallet, and anyone who wins $600 or more still has to pick up the paper ticket to cash their winnings.

Lotto.com targets people who do not ordinarily play the lottery at convenience stores, Metzger said. The company advertises online and tries to lure people who Metzger describes as “incremental players.” The average transaction is $10, he said.

The couriers do not sell products that are not already offered by the Colorado Lottery.

After the bill was filed Friday, courier companies began scrambling to figure out how it might impact their business models. Bridges said he did not intend to put them out of business and believes they are protected. But others weren’t so clear on the bill’s language.

Metzger said his business would not suffer if the Colorado Lottery eventually offers online ticket sales. He cited New Hampshire, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., as places where couriers and state-sanctioned online lottery sales co-exist.

“We live in an age of convenience and, quite frankly, if you don’t want your players to age out and you to continue returning those funds to good causes, you have to reach players where they are,” Metzger said. “People just don’t have the same behavioral patterns that they used to. So we need to modernize the lottery like everything else is modern.”

Leopoldo R. of Milliken, who bought a Colorado Mega Millions lottery ticket in June at a Johnstown 7-11 at 6150 E. U.S. Highway 34, said he was in shock when he checked his ticket and found he had won $2 million, .

His ticket was originally worth $1 million, but with new Mega Millions rules, it bumped it up to $2 million, because his ticket had a 2X multiplier. Multipliers go up to 10X.

Leopoldo said he used the quick pick feature, which randomly chose the numbers on his ticket.

According to the Colorado Lottery, Leopoldo’s ticket was one of the largest amounts won in the state. Lottery officials said Colorado has only seen three $4 million, two $2 million and five $1 million winners before his win.

Lottery players will soon pay $5 rather than $2 for a ticket — just the second price increase in the 22-year-old game’s history and the first since current rules were adopted in 2017, according to a news release from Colorado Lottery.

Jackpots will start at $50 million, up from $20 million, and the odds of buying a winning ticket will increase from about one in 302 million to one in 290 million.

“We are excited to bring even more chances to win to Coloradans in April,” Colorado Lottery senior director Tom Seaver said in the release. “The state has seen plenty of Mega Millions winners, but we are still waiting to have our own top prize winner. As national jackpots grow, so do the proceeds (that) the lottery gives back to beautiful Colorado.”

Mega Millions players pick five different numbers between one and 70, plus a “Mega Ball” number between one and 25. Winning the jackpot requires players to guess all six numbers correctly, and for $1 more, they can guess a “Megaplier” number between two and five, which is drawn separately and multiplies the value of non-jackpot prizes.

Colorado has produced five $1 million Mega Millions winners since 2010. Including Megaplier winners, the state has seen six people win $1 million, two win $2 million and three win $4 million, according to Colorado Lottery.

The Megaplier will be replaced by a randomly-assigned multiplier between two and 10 starting in April. Prizes worth less than the cost of a ticket will also be eliminated.

Seaver said in the release that more than 38% of every dollar spent on tickets returns to the state, which uses lottery proceeds to support

The numbers drawn were: 7, 11, 19, 53 68 and red ball 23.

Since the last winner on Jan. 1, there have been 36-straight drawings without a big winner. It’s tough to win the Powerball jackpot because the odds are so long, at 1 in 292.2 million.

The top prize up for grabs Monday night was for an estimated $800 million.

The $865 million prize on the line for the next drawing Wednesday night is for a sole winner who is paid through an annuity, with an initial payment and then 29 annual payments. Most winners choose a cash payout, which for Wednesday night’s drawing would be an estimated $416 million.

The Powerball prize has mushroomed at a time when Mega Millions, the other nearly national U.S. lottery game, has become even bigger, with an estimated annuity payout of $1.1 billion. The next Mega Millions drawing will be Tuesday night.

Both games are sold in 45 states as well as Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Powerball also is sold in Puerto Rico.

A Publix grocery store in Neptune Beach sold the winning ticket, according to the Florida Lottery. The winning numbers drawn Tuesday night were: 13, 19, 20, 32, 33 and the yellow ball 14.

A message was left seeking comment Wednesday from Publix. Messages left for the Florida Lottery weren’t immediately returned.

Before the big win, there had been 31 straight drawings since the last time someone won the game’s jackpot on April 18. That enabled the prize to steadily grow to be the third-largest ever in U.S. history.

Mega Millions jackpot winners are so rare thanks to odds of one in 302.6 million.

The $1.58 billion payout would go to the winner if they opt for an annuity, doled out over 30 years. But people usually prefer a lump sum option, which for Tuesday’s jackpot was an estimated $783.3 million.

The prize money is subject to federal taxes. Many states also tax lottery winnings.

A Florida law that went into effect last year allows the winners of lottery prizes in excess of $250,000 to remain anonymous for 90 days. Also of note, there is also no state income tax in Florida.

Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Neptune Beach has just over 7,000 residents and is 16 miles (26 kilometers) east of Jacksonville on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.

CU’s new two-way star is a Mega Millions ticket in cleats, a magic lamp that can cut on a dime. The only limits are Sean Lewis’ imagination and Deion Sanders’ patience.

“I want to play all the snaps,” the Buffs cornerback/wide receiver said Monday as Camp Preseason Prime hit Week 2. “I want to play all of them. I don’t like to be off the field. Being off the field, on the sideline, is boring.”

Hunter does not do boring. Or small. In a league with at least six NFL quarterbacks running around, led by USC signal-caller and 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, the affable Georgian was the only man to take up , at defensive back and all-purpose/special teams.

“I mean, I pretty much block all that stuff out until it’s time to go,” Hunter said of the summer love. “I mean, I (will get) into that stuff after the season. After I do what I’ve got planned for myself.”

Plans? Oh, he’s got plans, all right.

Hunter this past weekend posted a picture of himself in full CU gear on Instagram with him giving a “sush” finger with his left hand.

“HEISMAN LOADING ….”

“The thing with Travis is, there’s everything everyone sees and his physical gifts,” Lewis, CU’s offensive coordinator noted last week when asked about Boulder’s new favorite multi-tasker.

“But his mental capacity to learn, and everything that he’s learning in all three phases of the game (are exemplary). What we are going to ask him to do is, we’re going to continue to stress and test him to see where is that point to where his mental capacity can’t handle anymore. As long as he can continue to take the optics, and know it and process it and apply his God-given abilities … we’re going to maximize that to the fullest.”

No player who’s primarily on the defensive side of the ball has won the Heisman since Charles Woodson edged Peyton Manning in 1997. Since 2000, depending on whether or not you still choose to count Reggie Bush, only four non-QBs have taken the statue home.

With three weeks to go until the Buffs’ Sept. 2 opener at TCU, as far as the oddsmakers are concerned, there’s Williams, then North Carolina signal-caller Drake Maye, then everybody else.

Let����ap be clear, though: Hunter is not everybody else. Are you kidding?

People who have been around Coach Prime in recent years have talked to me at length since The Deion Train rolled into Boulder. Some like him. Some don’t. Some think Shedeur Sanders will make an easy transition to the Pac-12. Some still aren’t sure.

But what����ap funny is how all of them landed in complete, universal agreement, on the same thing: Travis Hunter is legit.

As in, legit legit.

As in, NFL-scouts-are-coming legit.

As in, Heisman legit.

“(The coaches), they let me go to my limit,” Hunter continued. “And I don’t have a limit. So … it����ap pretty much play whatever I want.”

You watch. If the Buffs win, and win early, seats on the Hunter bandwagon will vanish like it����ap a Taylor Swift concert.

Week 1 at TCU and Week 2 at home against Nebraska have already landed primo, national time slots on Fox, and will become must-see TV if CU opens up 3-0 or a sexy 2-1.

Heismans are snatched off of moments, victories, politics and hype. The latter won’t be a problem: Hunter started the week off with 689,000 followers on TikTok and almost another 600,000 on Instagram. (Context: Texas QB Arch Manning, Peyton’s nephew, . And Williams, who might well be the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, has 21,000 and 198,000, respectively.)

For a guy whose Instagram feed — billboard after billboard, ads for football gloves, fishing equipment, skin and shave products and Ford trucks — often looks like Times Square at night, Hunter takes his craft seriously. After spring ball wrapped, he went to Texas to train, and came away with five added pounds of muscle.

“I feel a lot better, a lot stronger. I feel a lot faster,” Hunter recalled. “I feel a lot healthier, too. So pretty much, I’m good right now.”

He’s got Coach Prime at his back, Shedeur Sanders bending one ear and Buffs legend Michael Westbrook bending the other. Since when does Westbrook ever do boring?

“(He told me), ‘Pretty much, when you’re tired, that’s when your fundamentals come out in your route-running.’” Hunter said. “So that’s pretty much what I learned (from him): I’ve always got to stick with the fundamentals, no matter what.”

“What����ap been your best play a camp so far?” a scribe.

Hunter smiled at that one.

“All of them,” he replied.

Heisman loading. Almost time to go.

The numbers drawn Friday night were: 11, 30, 45, 52, 56 and the gold ball 20.

Because no one matched all six numbers and won the estimated $1.35 billion jackpot, the top prize increased to $1.55 billion for the next drawing Tuesday night.

There now have been 31 straight drawings without a jackpot winner. The last time someone won the Mega Millions jackpot was April 18.

The $1.55 billion prize would be for a sole winner who chooses the annuity option with payment stretched over 30 years. Most winners opt for a lump-sum payment, which would be an estimated $757.2 million on Tuesday.

A big slice of those winnings would go toward federal taxes, while many states also tax lottery payouts.

The jackpot is so hard to win because of the 1 in 302.6 million odds of matching the numbers on five white balls and a separate mega ball. The odds are better to win smaller prizes, which start at $2.

Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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But until Wednesday, fans couldn’t purchase actual tickets for the show.

That’s because the Sept. 3 concert is being sponsored by the Colorado Lottery. Instead of purchasing a ticket, fans were at least $30 in Powerball, Mega Millions, Colorado Lotto+ or Lucky for Life slips. Without buying lottery tickets, would-be concertgoers were out of luck.

But lottery officials backpedaled Wednesday afternoon after The Denver Post relayed concerns from gambling awareness organizations, who expressed outrage over how this tactic might impact those battling addiction. Earlier in the day, a lottery spokesperson defended the practice, saying the organization had sponsored concerts at the State Fair for years.

Now, though, people interested in attending Benatar’s show without playing the lottery will be able to purchase $45 tickets through the Colorado State Fair box office, either in person or over the phone, said Meghan Dougherty, a lottery spokesperson.

“We do appreciate feedback from the industry,” Dougherty said.

Lottery experts, earlier Wednesday, said they had never encountered a situation like this one.

“Pat Benatar’s greatest hit might be ‘Heartbreaker,’ but the Colorado Lottery never misses an opportunity to play its own greatest hit: backbreaker,” said Les Bernal, national director for Stop Predatory Gambling and Campaign for Gambling-Free Kids.

On its , the lottery promotes the concert as an $85 value to see Benatar and Giraldo “on our dime.”

“We’re all fired up!” lottery officials said on the promotion.

But the show isn’t on the lottery’s dime, Bernal said — it’s paid for by low-income Coloradans who view the lottery as a financial lifeboat. The Colorado Lottery brought in $796 million in revenue in 2021, according to its . More than 30% of players who bought a ticket made less than $45,000 a year as a household.

“In order for you to buy a ticket, you have to participate in the purchase of a dangerous and addictive product,” Bernal said.

Jonathan D. Cohen, an author who has , said it’s not uncommon for lotteries to sponsor state fairs or even concerts. But he said he’s never seen gambling used as a prerequisite to see part of the fair.

“They’re getting people who don’t play the lottery habituated and socialized,” he said. “Like, ‘Oh, I had to play the lottery — now I know how to buy the tickets.’ So the next time there’s a billion-dollar jackpot, they know where to go. That seems like the ulterior motive behind this tactic.”

Tamarinde Doane, a Colorado Springs resident, grew excited when she saw Benatar’s name on the State Fair website. But she thought back to a friend’s family who lost their home over a gambling habit and couldn’t pull the trigger on scratch tickets to see the show.

“Maybe other people don’t see this as concerning, but it doesn’t fully pass my ethical test of equitable access,” she said.

The bigger question lurking behind all of this, Cohen said, is that this isn’t a private company trying to juice sales. This is a government agency — with the sole goal of raising money for the state.

“If (a major corporation) was running the lottery, this is how they’d do it,” he said. “The fact that it’s the state should give people more pause.”

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A drawing Friday night will determine whether anybody wins that $910 million prize, Colorado lottery spokesperson Meghan Dougherty said. That����ap the fifth-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history. The largest was a $2.04 billion Powerball prize won in November 2022.

A ticket sold in Los Angeles on July 19 led to a person winning a $1.08 billion Powerball jackpot this month. California officials haven’t announced a winner for that jackpot.

Lottery winners can receive the full amount in regular payments over three decades, or opt for cash – significantly less. The cash option for the Mega Millions jackpot this week would be $464 million, Dougherty said.

Colorado receives revenues from the PowerBall lottery, funds that help , , the , and . This year, lottery officials say, the lottery will generate about $75.7 million for the state.

In a drawing on Tuesday, nobody won the $820 million prize, driving up the amount in the jackpot.

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On July 8, somebody southeast of metro Denver in Elizabeth won $1 million from a ticket purchased at Murphy Express, a gas station.

Neither of the prizes has been claimed, PowerBall spokeswoman Meghan Dougherty said Monday morning. After 180 days, unclaimed prize money is transferred into PowerBall proceeds for the state — which has happened before, Dougherty said.

In the latest drawing, two people also won $100,000 on tickets purchased in Littleton and Arvada, and one person won $50,000 on a ticket purchased in Trinidad, she said.

In 2017, a PowerBall player in Clifton won $133.2 million — the record. In 2014, a person in Rifle won $90 million.

Nobody won jackpot prizes in the recent drawings. The estimated PowerBall jackpot is $900 million, along with an estimated Mega Millions jackpot of $640 million.

State PowerBall revenues help fund Great Outdoors Colorado, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Conservation Trust Fund, and Building Excellent Schools Today. This year, lottery officials calculate that the lottery will generate $75.7 million in funds.