Lottery faces questions about new sports game

Legislators skeptical of state’s proposal

SANTA FE — The plan to create a New Mexico Lottery game tied to the outcome of sporting events could generate an extra $6 million to $10 million a year for the college scholarship program that benefits from lottery revenue, the lottery’s CEO said Tuesday.

But the idea also generated skepticism during a legislative hearing Tuesday.

State Rep. Jason Harper questioned whether it could jeopardize New Mexico’s gambling compacts with tribal governments, among other legal questions.

The debate is likely to resurface in the 60-day legislative session that begins in January.

David Barden, CEO of the New Mexico Lottery, said the agency is tentatively planning to offer the game this summer, well after the session ends. And he’s mindful, he said, that the Legislature could take action on the issue before then, if lawmakers choose to step in.

In a budget hearing before the Legislative Finance Committee, Barden pitched the sports lottery game on Tuesday as a positive step that could help maximize revenue.

“We have to change with the times, or we’re going to lose out,” he said.

The lottery’s legal team believes state law would already allow the new game, Barden said. A customer would trying to pick the winning team in a series of sporting events. If the person got the teams right, they’d win, just as if they’d picked the right numbers in a traditional Powerball game.

It wouldn’t be like the kind of sports book you’d find at a casino, Barden said.

But Harper, a Rio Rancho Republican, said the new game could violate gambling compacts with tribal governments that operate casinos and share revenue with New Mexico. No state agency should do anything, he

said, that approaches the legal line of violating the gambling compacts, which provide tens of millions of dollars in revenue to the state each year.

“I just see that as a real problem,” Harper said.

The final details of the sports lottery game — approved this fall by the lottery board — are still being worked out, lottery officials say, but it would be similar to a parlay wager where players would have to correctly pick the outcomes of, say, five sporting events to win.

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to legalize betting on sports.