ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – In an effort to boost ticket sales for New Mexico's struggling lottery, State Senator John Arthur Smith has proposed a bill to allow players to purchase tickets with their credit cards. At this time, the only payments accepted for lottery tickets are cash and, in some venues, debit cards or prepaid cards.

The main concern of those opposed, to no surprise, is the risk of consumers going into debt to finance their gambling. Currently, a patchwork of state policies address this issue nationwide, with some states enabling the use of credit cards and some not. In some cases, card issuers may treat such purchases as cash advances, so cardholders would need to be familiar with specific terms of their cardholder agreements related to that specific use.

Another issue to consider is the fee that lottery ticket sellers will have to pay for credit card processing. Will they have to boost their ticket prices to accommodate this new payment option, or will the lottery fund absorb the fees?

The jury is still out on whether simply enabling credit card purchases would be enough to significantly increase lottery ticket sales, and while there are no updates about the bill's likely passage at this time, officials are taking it into consideration.