Want to play the SC lottery but don’t have cash? A new option is a signature away
South Carolina’s cash-only lottery game is on track to finally allow debit cards.
A part of the state budget approved by lawmakers Wednesday is a provision that will allow people to buy lottery tickets using debit cards or digital debit cards.
It could bring in an estimated $52 million a year into state coffers, and is a move supported by Gov. Henry McMaster.
But didn’t a state senator kill this move earlier in the year?
Yes, state Sen. Brian Adams, R-Berkeley, used a Senate rule to remove the proposed proviso to allow debit cards to be used to buy lottery tickets from the Senate budget proposal. Senate rules prevent provisos that amend current laws from being included in the annual spending plan.
Adams also has been blocking stand-alone legislation in the Senate that would allow the use of debit cards to buy lottery tickets.
So, when the House had its second run through the budget, it included a provision to suspend state law that prohibits the use of checks, credit cards and debit cards to buy lottery tickets. A budget conference committee adopted this version of the provision.
The Lottery Commission has a policy, however, that if the state removed the cash-only restriction,the only additional payment methods allowed would be debit cards or digital debit cards.
But it is still up to the 3,900 individual retailers to decide whether to take the debit card payments.
“The marketplace will sort out how debit card sales are embraced,” a lottery commission policy on debit cards reads.
“Transaction time in retail outlets would also be reduced for customers and clerks for those who present a debit card for a purchase and then have to make a separate cash purchase for a lottery ticket,” the policy adds.
Debit cards will be allowed as soon as July 1 when the budget is set to go into effect, if and when it is signed by McMaster.
South Carolina is one of three states that requires a cash only game, but lottery revenues are projected to fall as fewer people carry cash.
The lottery pays for college scholarships and is a potential funding source for the state’s kindergarten through 12th grade school choice program.
“Over the years, people have moved from cash to credit cards and debit cards and a lot of vendors do not even allow cash payment,” McMaster said in January when rolling out his executive budget proposal. “So we’re trying to keep up with the change in the times and not let the program, which was carefully thought out, some in favor and some not in favor, nevertheless thousands of families depend on it in South Carolina.”
