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The industry is still very old school so Jackpocket is required to buy a physical ticket from a kiosk at a retail store, scan it, and upload it to the app. In order to allow for mobile lottery apps, state law or lottery regulations must be changed. Mobile lottery, by comparison, is currently legal in seven states. The lottery isn’t as glamorous as, say, playing baccarat in Las Vegas, but drawings bring in considerably more than the $53 billion in gambling revenue the country’s casinos generated last year. In 2020, $83 billion was spent on lottery tickets across the 45 states that operate them. It is estimated that nearly 50% of Americans will buy a lottery ticket in a given year. Today it is big business for most states, which protect their tax-generating institutions with a fortress of legislation, regulation, and bureaucracy. The modern-day lottery started in New Hampshire in the 1960s, but humans have been playing similar games throughout history-the 13 colonies were funded, in part, by lottery revenue.
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