As silent as the night, the Minnesota State Lottery is nearly a year into an experiment to get more Minnesotans to gamble online through a subscription lottery service. Nothing has been mentioned in the media publicly.

Private online gambling is illegal in Minnesota, and the state’s elected leaders have turned back various gambling expansion proposals and online gambling ventures. US lottery

But the Minnesota State Lottery took the first steps toward what could become a massive shift to Internet lottery play last year. They shifted to the Internet to boost sales as more Minnesotans have been shown to reject traditional lottery tickets and become more comfortable playing games and buying goods online.

The reason behind this secret move was because the lottery presented a rapid decline and they felt that they had to do something about it and build up a player base again. Lottery results

The move, however has taken some gambling critics by surprise. Several, including legislators, said they were deeply troubled by what they see as secrecy, aggressive tactics and a bypassing of legislative approval. Actually it is treading in unknown grounds.

Present Governor Mark Dayton’s administration learned about the online ticket-buying service only late last week. Dayton spokesman Bob Hume said the practice started before Dayton took office and that they have not looked into it.

State Rep. Ryan Winkler said it should “absolutely” be reviewed by legislators.

“I certainly want to find out if they have the authority to do it,” said Winkler, who sits on committees that review gambling issues. “It look like they are trying to avoid public attention.”

Lottery officials say they don’t need legislative approval. Their online subscription service, which allows players to gamble no more than $50 a week, to electronic commerce, not Internet gambling. Which makes it “within the guidelines” according to Lottery officials.

Minnesota is one of only a few states to offer the online lottery ticket sales, but legislators in other states like New Jersey are considering it. North Dakota and New Hampshire offer similar online lottery subscription services, but neither got legislative approval.

Lottery officials say there was nothing secretive about the subscription service. They intentionally staged a “soft launch” since they anticipated only a tiny fraction of Minnesotans would use the system and they didn’t want to spook retailers who make a commission selling lottery tickets.

Right now, just 7,599 Minnesotans are signed up for the online service. Subscription sales made up just $607,000 of the $500 million businesses. There is no advertising campaign for the service,

The online subscription service allows Minnesotans to buy tickets for most lottery games around the clock. There are a couple of guidelines that are related to lottery subscription online, for example the maximum amount that is permitted to play per week is $50 and no credit cards are allowed. All purchases are made via direct access to checking or savings account.