A Utah lawmaker is making another attempt to legalize the lottery in her state. Rep. Kera Birkeland, whose first try failed hard last year, has made an adjustment to her bill in hopes to appeal to more of her colleagues.
Rather than legalize the lottery statewide, Birkeland aims to legalize it only in counties that border states that have the lottery. She says Utahns spend $200m per year buying lottery tickets in other states – most of which one would presume is from people near border states – and wants that money to stay in Utah.
“What I’m trying to do is just capture the existing behavior of people who will drive across the state line to buy those tickets,” Birkeland told Fox 13 News.
a change would require a constitutional amendment
Utah is one of just two states, the other being Hawaii, with no legal gambling whatsoever. In addition to those two, Alabama, Alaska, and Nevada do not sell lottery tickets. Prohibition of gambling was included in the state constitution when Utah became a state, so a change would require a constitutional amendment.
If Birkeland’s bill gains any sort of traction, it would still be a long process. It would not be introduced until 2025 and then Utah residents would have to vote on it in 2026.
“There’s still those saying that this is, you know, really going to decay morally our state and to them I just hope that this compromise is showing we’re not again, changing behaviors, we’re just capturing those same behaviors within our state limits,” Birkeland said.