Lottery App Gets $17M Series A Funding

Oh gosh, where to begin. First, we write about financial technology - which certainly encompasses apps - and the lottery is certainly a form of a financial institution. Ergo, this is a fintech story. Now, NOT THAT I REMEMBER, but I've been told about the famous "Numbers Games" run by the mafia dating back to the 1800s, and you can find more info on those at Wikipedia, (and the descriptions of some of these early lotteries are admittedly hair-raising). That said, "the government" basically took over the Numbers Games when they instituted various state-run lotteries throughout the 1900s in the US. No editorializing there - draw your own conclusions. We often laugh about that fact here at FintekNews world headquarters. Then, when the Illinois lottery launched (where I grew up), all the funds raised from the profits were supposed to go to the Illinois school system. That's it - we're doing this for the children. Except the funds DIDN'T all go to the schools, fancy that. And then there's the whole addictive behavior thing that affects some, but not others.

So - now there is a new app (actually, it was launched in 2015) - AutoLotto - that enables you to purchase Powerball lottery tickets online and they've raised quite a sum of money and set up some powerful media partnerships as well. We won't editorialize, because many businesses (such as trading in the stock markets, for one) could be argued to be a form of gambling. We just have concerns about how the ease of these transactions could spin out of control for some individuals. Be that as it may, they are now $17 million richer with these latest investments.

(Cindy Taylor, Publisher)

Investors include Tom Arrix, Jason Port, Bruce Gibney, Ben Narasin, Ryan Scott, and Aurum Partners, among others....

The company also announced partnerships with media giants iHeartMedia and Gatehouse Media, which have each invested and contributed media assets, to accelerate market coverage on multiple distribution mediums..."