Lottery to pay off student loans proposed in New Jersey

A New Jersey lawmaker proposes creating a new lottery game with a catch. If you win, you have to use the money to pay off student loans.

The game might be a more attractive option than the regular lottery for students burdened with college debt, said Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-Gloucester.

“Those who can participate are only those who have student debt or benefactors who are interested in helping someone who has a student debt, so your chance of winning may be larger,” he said. “And, second, the game itself provides some back-end discipline because the payment goes not to you but to the debt holder.”

Many specifics of the proposed new game still have to be resolved.

“How often the game would run, it could be monthly, it could be weekly,” Burzichelli said. “The game will only be successful if a large enough pool of players is developed, so that’s going to take marketing. One of the critics of this approach raised the question about what happens on the winnings as far as how they are taxed. Those kinds of details have to be worked through.”