New Zealand lotteries have proposed a restriction for the online sale of lotto tickets according to a briefing paper that was released under the Official Information Act. The plan is to restrict lotto sales to people that are over 18 by matching their player registration details to the driver licence database.

But the proposal didn't make it past New Zealand's Land Transport. Andy Knackstedt, spokesman for Land Transport said that date of birth information can't be legally released from the register and that there is a risk of children "borrowing" their parent's driver licence's. This would mean that New Zealand's Lotteries proposal would have actually made "an increased risk to licence holders, rather than providing protection".

New Zealand Lotteries spokeswoman Karen Jones says that right now there are no requirements to verify the age of people that are buying tickets to the weekly drawing and that they had decided no to pursue the idea. So there is to be no age restriction when the Lotto goes online. But New Zealand's Instant Games will be age restricted when they appear online shortly.

Last month Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker gave New Zealand Lotteries the approval to sell tickets to their Saturday Lotto, Big Wednesday and Keno draws over the internet. The briefing paper says that the key reason for allowing online sales was to encourage more younger adults to play the Lotto.

"We currently have an aging customer profile and the Internet channel will enable us to connect our products with a younger generation of 20 to 35 year olds through a sales channel that they regularly and increasingly use."









- 2008-04-23