online gaming legislation<\/strong> passed by both branches of the Michigan State Legislature \u2014 legislation it had miraculously passed in the final hours of its 2018 legislative session.<\/p>\nHowever,\u00a0new Gov. Gretchen Whitmer<\/strong>\u00a0was sworn in shortly after he departed. Despite the setback, supporters of this latest Michigan online gambling bill need to realize it\u2019s far from dead yet. Not because Whitmer will be some sort\u00a0of online gambling savior in the Great Lakes State, but because a closer look at the Michigan Lottery reveals the state has had legal online gambling<\/strong> since 2014.<\/p>\nMichigan already has online gambling<\/span><\/h2>\nOnline gambling advocates were desperately hoping Michigan would become the fifth state to legalize online gambling<\/strong>. Perhaps they should realize it probably already was.<\/p>\nIn fact, this latest piece of legislation is really more of an expansion<\/strong> of online gambling in the state. It simply removes something as un-American as the lottery\u2018s current monopoly<\/strong> on online gambling. Therefore, a version of the bill is likely going to get the governor\u2019s signature sooner or later.<\/p>\nAfter a successful pilot program began in August 2014<\/strong>, the Michigan Lottery launched online lottery sales in November of that year.<\/p>\nThe Michigan iLottery<\/strong> was just Instant Keno<\/strong> and electronic scratch-off game equivalents<\/strong> at first. However, by August 2015, it had grown to include keno and 17 online instant-win games. Now, in the middle of its fifth year in operation, the Michigan iLottery offers more than 30<\/strong> instant-win games. Games that look and feel a lot like online slots<\/strong>.<\/p>\nThe games often share names with traditional scratch-off and pull-tab tickets. However, the electronic versions available online are really more like slot machines.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no scratching or pulling. Players merely push a button to play. And they can keep pushing that button until they run out of money, just like a slot. Additionally, the animations and sounds are more like slots in a casino than anything else. They\u2019re certainly above and beyond any paper scratch-offs<\/strong> available at traditional lottery retailers.<\/p>\nIn fact, online instant win lottery games are so much like online casino games; when they launched in Pennsylvania in 2018, several Pennsylvania casinos got together to sue the state lottery for launching online slot equivalents after expressly agreeing not to do so.<\/p>\n