Michigan Lottery Online Gambling

The standard first deposit bonus is automatically credited when you make your first purchase on the site. It is a 50 percent bonus credit up to $100.

In fact, make a $200 deposit into your account and you will be credited the maximum $100. Make a $10 purchase you’ll get $5, and so on.

Other available Michigan online lottery bonuses require you to use a promo code.

There are promo codes available on the back of a number of scratch-off tickets available at Michigan Lottery retailers. These games include:

Michigan Gaming Control Board authorizes online gaming, sports betting to begin Jan. 22 Detroit casinos produce nearly $639 million in aggregate revenue during 2020 Mich. Gaming Control Board approves 15 online gaming platform providers' licenses. The Michigan Lottery began offering its games online in 2014, an offering that has continued to grow. While the emergence of online lottery gaming in Michigan paved the way for online casino, it was the lottery that ended up holding back iCasino near the end of the windy road that was the legislative process.

  • Gold Rush Series ($2, $5, $10)
  • $4,000,000 Mega Bucks ($30)
  • Lucky 7’s Series ($2, $5, $10)
  • 2016 Holiday Instant Games ($2, $5, $10)
  • Hit Series ($2, $5, $10)

Purchase one of these instant game tickets, plus sign up for a new account with the promo code found on the back of the ticket, and you will get 10 free online games. Then, you’ll receive a $10 instant game coupon after you make your first $10 deposit or buy $10 in draw game tickets.

Using this promo code or any other is easy. Simply click the “+ Have a promo code?” link above the submit button on sign up. Enter the Michigan Lottery promo code, and the promotional offer will be available once sign up is confirmed.

MICHIGAN LOTTERY ONLINE GAMES AVAILABLE

There are three types of lottery games available online in Michigan. These include:

  • Draw Games
  • Instants Online
  • Keno
  • Draw Games

DRAW GAMES

The Michigan Lottery started online sales of its most popular drawgames in January 2016. The games include:

  • Powerball
  • Mega Millions
  • Fantasy 5
  • Lotto 47

Powerball remains on of the most popular lottery games in Michigan — online or off. In fact, the multi-state draw game is offered in 44 states, Washington D.C., US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Jackpots start at $40 million.

Plus, tickets are just $2.00 each. Drawings are on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Plus, tickets are available online until one hour and 15 minutes before each draw. Powerball is known for its huge jackpots. The largest ever recorded was $1.6 billion.

Michigan

INSTANTS ONLINE

Many of the Michigan Lottery instants online are electronic versions of scratch-off games. These are available at Michigan lottery retailers. Online, the games feature a graphic interface rather than the physical ticket. However, the game is the same.

The object is often to match prize amounts or specific symbols leading to a prize.

Some of the most popular instants online include:

  • Home Run Riches Online
  • Queen Of Diamonds
  • Instant Football Payout
  • Triple 7’s
  • Cashword
  • Pot O’ Gold

KENO

Keno is a lottery-style game offered at most casinos. Players choose a ticket cost and up to 10 different numbers from 1 to 80. The prize table and payouts adjust based on total numbers chosen and ticket cost. A random number generator selects a total of 20 numbers, and players win based on how many of the numbers they chose are drawn.

The Michigan online lottery offers four keno-style games, each of which offers a variation on basic keno game with different payouts and ways to win. The games include:

  • Instant keno
  • Instant keno multiplier
  • Quick 6
  • Fuzzball Keno

The Michigan House Ways and Means Committee recently held a hearing to discuss several gaming expansions under consideration by the legislature, including online gambling.

Michigan is the leading candidate to pass online gambling legislation in 2019, and the hearing was believed to be nothing more than the next step in that process. And that’s how it started.

Michigan lottery online gambling winnings

The hearing was chaired by the bill’s sponsor and online gambling supporter Rep. Brandt Iden.

Iden did an excellent job laying out all the reasons Michigan should legalize online gambling, and everything was moving along as expected. That was until representatives from the state budget office testified.

Channeling concerns from the governor’s administration, the budget office explained how it harbored the same cannibalization concerns that led to former Gov. Rick Snyder’s veto of a similar piece of legislation last year.

The fear: Michigan online gambling will cut into the money the state receives from its successful lottery. That lottery includes a thriving online component.

Are the MI lottery fears warranted?

If it passes online gambling legislation, Michigan would be one of only two states with both a legal online lottery and online casino games. Pennsylvania has also legalized both, but the launch of PA online casinos is still several months away.

So with no market to base its projections from, the budget office was left to speculate. The conclusion it reached was one out of every $6 spent at online casinos would be poached from the MI online lottery.

Intuitively, it makes sense.

The online lottery’s instant win games bear a striking resemblance to online slot machines. So much so that the average person would be hard-pressed to tell the difference. And that’s where the cannibalization concerns stem from.

However, these same concerns have been raised every time a new delivery method has come along.

It happened when online casino games were legalized in New Jersey, only it was speculated that the land-based casino industry would bear the brunt of the cannibalization.

That never came to pass. In fact, online casinos have been good for the New Jersey land-based casino industry.

Similarly, brick-and-mortar retailers were adamantly opposed to online lotteries, claiming it would diminish foot traffic and sales. That also turned out to not be the case. The budget office even admitted Michigan’s lottery retailers have benefitted from the presence of online lottery during the hearing.

Yet, the lottery is extremely concerned that online casinos will cannibalize its revenue. And because of a lower tax rate, the budget office believes that cannibalization will cost the state millions of dollars each year.

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Is it really different this time for MI lottery and online casino?

Will online casinos in Michigan cannibalize the states’s online lottery?

The truth is, no one really knows.

As noted, the games are very similar.

Michigan online gambling news

Michigan Lottery Online Gambling No Deposit

Beyond that, online slot machines are also more evolved when it comes to features, gameplay and selection. And with a lower tax rate, online slots should theoretically have a better return to player (RTP) than the lottery’s instant win games.

That said, all available evidence points to online casino trivially cannibalizing the lottery, or being beneficial.

Here’s why.

Michigan Lottery Online Gambling Sites

Cannibalization is a two-way street

The budget office spent plenty of time talking about cannibalization. But it overlooked a critical area: Online casinos will infuse the state’s gambling ecosystem with a lot of new players and money.

Michigan Lottery Online Gambling

Even in its doomsday scenario, where 15% of online casino is poached from the lottery, that means that 85% of the revenue would be new money. And just like some lottery players will spend money at online casinos, there will be online casino players that spend money on online lottery products. The cannibalization goes both ways.

Finally, plenty of people partake in both activities. Once a person puts some virtual nickels in an online slot machine, he or she doesn’t cease all other gambling activity.

Hey casinos, lottery players are just not that into you

Another overlooked factor is player behavior.

Attempts to change gambling behaviors rarely bears fruit.

If steering customers toward games the casino wants them to play were possible, then the games with the highest house edges and least overhead would be packed. The reality is, casinos have to offer a wide variety of games to appeal to as many people as they can.

Lottery players play the lottery for specific reasons, not because it’s the only game in town. They can already bet online at offshore casinos and sportsbooks.

So what are those reasons?

For starters, lottery games tend to be simplistic, and current customers are comfortable and familiar with them. Plus, they trust their state-sponsored lottery.

There’s also the notion that “if I’m going to gamble, at least my losses are going to a good cause (the state coffers) and not padding the bottom line of a casino.”

Michigan online gambling news

Shifting a player from the lottery to a casino, or vice versa is akin to converting a Pepsi drinker into a Coke drinker. The easier route is finding people who drink neither, or who will switch back and forth based on factors beyond taste.

The bottom line on MI online gambling

Converting lottery customers into online casino customers is a mammoth undertaking.

Michigan Lottery Online Gambling

As such, it’s unlikely online casinos will focus marketing dollars trying to convert lottery customers (customers who are likely happy with the product) into online casino customers when there is a plethora of new customers without any loyalty sitting on the sidelines.

Steve Ruddock - Steve covers nearly every angle of online poker in his job as a full-time freelance poker writer. His primary focus for OPR is the developing legal and legislative picture for regulated US online poker and gambling.

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