An idea to create a municipal lottery met significant resistance at a Fairbanks City Council work session Tuesday. There wasn’t an official vote, but the pushback is set to stop plans for a lottery from going any further.
The City of Fairbanks finance committee last year agreed on a lottery concept to recommend to the city council after former Mayor David Pruhs asked for new ways to increase revenue by 10% over three years without new taxes.
Under the committee’s recommendation, the city would sell lottery tickets online year round and hold a monthly draw. State law would cap prizes awarded by the city at $2 million annually.
City Finance Director Margarita Bell said Tuesday the city would have to obtain a gaming permit, maintain a special bank account and submit regular reports to the state. She said running the lottery would require personnel time, as well as new software and equipment.
But specifics remain vague. Bell said she’d started to develop a fleshed-out proposal to bring forward for consideration, but that she paused her research after verbal pushback from the council at previous meetings. Bell instead presented a synopsis of the idea on Tuesday to gauge whether to continue working on it.
“So, this is now before you to either request to move it forward, and I’ll continue to do research, or to state that we’re not interested, and I will cease research on this,” she told the council, which would have to approve any final plans.
The concept wasn’t subject to a formal vote at the work session, but a majority of the council spoke against advancing the lottery idea any further.
Councilmember Crystal Tidwell was one of them, and she said government and gambling aren’t a good mix.
“I think this is a lot of work, a significant expense, for not a lot of return, combined with I’m just not a fan of having a lottery for the government at all,” she said.
The one-page outline of the lottery concept included in the agenda didn’t appear in the form of a resolution or ordinance, and it didn’t include formal estimates of revenues and expenditures.
But at a meeting last month, Lotto Alaska creator and operator David Lambert said he doubts the lottery would make the city money.
“There is no way economically feasible that the city could do a lottery,” he said. “There are just too many limitations.”
He said those limitations include the $2 million annual prize cap, which he doesn’t think would generate “a feeding frenzy.” At Tuesday’s work session, Councilmember Lonny Marney referenced Lambert’s comments, saying he’s also against the idea.
“It seems like more hassle than is good, but I do appreciate the finance committee thinking outside the box,” Marney said.
Councilmembers Valerie Therrien and John Ringstad also said they wouldn't support creating a municipal lottery.
City Chief of Staff Michael Sanders confirmed Wednesday that city administration considers the council’s feedback this week to have killed the concepting, halting additional work on drafting a formal proposal.