New Hampshire Gives up on Proposed Instrastate Online Scratch Cards

In a bit of a surprising reversal, the New Hampshire Lottery Commission announced this week that the implementation of the proposed PlayNowNH.com will not be happening after all – not due to vague American gambling laws but rather due to directors’ assessment of profitability.

“It was my belief that the game would have produced modest revenue,” NHLC executive director McIntyre said. “In light of our other challenges at this time, it is clear that the resources needed to introduce and sustain a product like PlayNowNH would be a poor return on investment.”

In July, a delay to launching the website’s launch was announced, with a formal proposal to be delieverd by the NHLC in September; the game was to allow betting on online scratch cards with a daily cap of $100 per player. The site was originally supposed to have been offering the gambling on July 1.

The overriding law on iinternet gambling in the United States is of course the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) which essentially prevents payment between casino and player by financial institutions. However, individual states such as New Hampshire’s neighbor Massachusetts have recently been exploring the possibility of intrastate internet gambling networks, an opportunity that the UIGEA allows for.