Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your Ohio lottery sales retailer bond needs.
How Do I Get a Lottery Retailer Agents License?
In Ohio, lottery retail licenses are issued by the Ohio Lottery Commission. To learn more, visit the Commission’s website page for people interested in becoming an Ohio lottery retailer.
What Does the Licensing Process Involve?
In applying for a license as a Georgia lottery retailer, you allow the Georgia Lottery Corporation (GLC) to investigate, including checks of your credit history, criminal record, federal, state, and local taxes owed. If they approve you for a license, this information will help the GLC determine whether you are required to provide a Financial Security Deposit (FSD) and in what amount.
You will be notified by the GLC Retail Contracts Administration Department if you are subject to the FSD requirement, which may be satisfied with a Georgia lottery bond if you don’t want to tie up your funds or credit with a cash escrow or letter of credit. (Most lottery retailers choose the bonding option!)
To become licensed as an Ohio lottery retailer, you’ll need to complete an online application. After you have submitted your license application, it will be forwarded to your local Regional Lottery salesperson, who will schedule an appointment with you to go over the final steps in the licensing process, including training, a criminal background check, and the bonding requirement for lottery retailers.
Once your application is approved, you will need to furnish the Ohio Lottery Commission with a $15,000 Ohio lottery bond. The required bond amount may be higher, depending on the volume of any prior lottery sales at your location.
Why Is a Lottery Bond Required?
An Ohio lottery bond serves as a lottery retailer’s guarantee to the Ohio Lottery Commission (the bond’s “obligee”) and to the public to comply fully with the applicable regulations and rules contained in Title 37, Chapter 3770 of the Ohio Revised Code. The bond also guarantees compensation of the state and any consumer incurring a financial loss due to Code violations by the lottery retailer (the bond’s “principal”).
How Does a Lottery Bond Work?
The third party to an Ohio lottery bond (in addition to the obligee requiring the bond and the principal required to purchase it) is the “surety”—the party guaranteeing the bond. The legally binding surety bond agreement obligates the principal to pay all valid claims, but as the guarantor, the surety usually pays a legitimate claim initially, to be repaid later by the principal.
The surety’s payment of a claim on the principal’s behalf does not eliminate the principal’s obligation, but merely shifts it to repaying the debt owed to the surety. Failure to honor that debt can result in the surety taking legal action against the principal.
What Does a Lottery Bond Cost?
The premium cost of an Ohio lottery bond depends on the premium rate the surety establishes for the principal through an underwriting assessment of the risk involved in paying claims on the principal’s behalf. That assessment relies on the principal’s personal credit score as a measure of the risk that the principal will not repay the surety promptly.
A high credit score is interpreted as a low risk, which is rewarded by a low premium rate. Conversely, a low credit score signals a higher risk to the surety, which warrants a higher premium rate.
Get a Quote
Our surety bond professionals will get you the lottery sales retailer bonds in Ohio you need at a competitive rate.