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Legislation to allow Idaho Lottery retailers to get larger incentive payments for increasing sales barely passed the Senate today, after much debate. “I don’t need someone asking me if I want to super-size my lottery ticket,” said Sen. Brent Hill, R-Rexburg. “It’s designed for … nothing else but to get them to push the lottery sales within their store. I think that’s inappropriate for the state of Idaho, particularly when we’re taking money away from education.” Sen. Joe Stegner, R-Lewiston, sponsor of the bill, said it was requested by the state Lottery Commission to allow incentive payments to retailers to vary and be as high as 2 percent, rather than the current 1 percent. No bottom-line change in proceeds to the state is anticipated, he said; it’s more a management issue for the lottery in dealing with the timing of incentive payments.
Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, said, “I think we ought to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them run their operation.” But Senate President Pro-Tem Bob Geddes, R-Soda Springs, said, “We don’t need to see individual businesses going into a marketing campaign to increase their lottery sales.” Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said the retailer incentives should come out of the lottery’s existing administrative overhead, which takes 3.1 percent of lottery proceeds. Stegner said the bill doesn’t address the merits of having a state lottery. “The fact is that the citizens of the state of Idaho have pretty consistently told us that they want this opportunity,” he said. “This program does generate $34 million annually, half of it going to the permanent building fund, half of it going to schools.” The bill, SB 1059a, passed on a 19-14 vote and now moves to the House.
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