Does the Lottery Need a Lottery to Fund Its Prize Payouts?

The continuing examples of the financial troubles the State of Illinois is suffering through recently travel up and down the spectrum of human emotion from the tragic to the ludicrous.

The latest incident seems to be a mix of both extremes.

Two Illinois Lottery winners filed a class action lawsuit in federal court Wednesday to attempt to force the gaming agency to pay the prize money they won, according to a Chicago Tribune report. Since last month, state law has prohibited the lottery from making prize payouts greater than $25,000 until legislators pass a new budget, the report stated.

But this hasn’t stopped the lottery from selling tickets that offer prize money in that forbidden dollar range.

Since the last state budget expired at the end of June, the lottery is on the line for more than $288 million in prize money to reward to more than two dozen winners, the report stated.

Now might be the time to create a special state lottery that has its proceeds go toward replacing the original lottery’s restricted prize vault.

via the Chicago Tribune