BOSTON, Mass. (SHNS)--Bay Staters may be able to buy Lottery products from their phones or computers starting in April 2026, the director of the Massachusetts Lottery said — a new launch date that's about five months later than originally planned. "So initially we were feeling it was going to be about 16 months, and it's probably going to take a little bit longer," Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who chairs the Lottery Commission, said at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce event Tuesday morning. What are the pros and cons of legalizing an online lottery? Lottery Executive Director Mark William Bracken called out from the back of the room where the event was held, in the Bank of America building in downtown Boston, that the Lottery is now eyeing April 2026 for the launch. "I'll be back next year to tell you whether that's fully accurate. It better be, Mark," Goldberg quipped. The state has issued a request for vendors to design the online gaming system. "Our noses are to the grindstone, we're trying to identify the right people through the [request for proposals] process to plan, address and get it online. Because once we go online, we want it to be perfect," Goldberg said Tuesday. The Lottery brought in an estimated $1.159 billion in net profit last year to be returned to Massachusetts cities and towns in fiscal year 2024, and a total estimated $6.168 billion in revenue for the budget year. Goldberg and Lottery officials have been warning for years that the roughly $1 billion that the Lottery produces for local aid each year could be in jeopardy unless lawmakers allowed the agency to sell its products on the internet. While the Lottery profits have held up despite the addition of casino-style gambling and legal sports betting, the House and Senate included that authorization in the fiscal year 2025 budget that Gov. Maura Healey signed this summer. Along with that authorization came an expectation that $100 million of iLottery revenue would go toward early childhood education and care grants in the fiscal year 2025 budget. Now, however, if online sales won't be up and running until April 2026, there likely won't be a substantial revenue impact until fiscal year 2027 — meaning budget officials this year may have to do some shifting of dollars to cover the $100 million originally intended to be covered by revenues from the new program. A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Administration and Finance said Tuesday that the administration is aware of the timeline and is tracking the potential budget gap for fiscal year 2025, but is still committed to ensuring the child care grants are funded this year.  In that vein a supplemental budget that the governor filed in September recommends putting $150 million into the Early Education and Care Affordability Fund to cover the deficiency. Healey also included $2.5 million in that bill to help the Lottery with implementation of its online launch as soon as possible, the spokesman said.  Once it does get up and running, Goldberg said Tuesday that iLottery is expected to bring in $70 million in net-profit from online sales in its first full year of operations. That number scales to $180 million by its third year, over $230 million by its fifth year, and over $360 million in year 10. Those amounts are expected to be on top of the $1 billion-plus the existing slate of physical Lottery offering brings in, Bracken told reporters, calling it "separate and independent." Goldberg and Bracken both made a point Tuesday of saying that the online Lottery sales will not detract from brick and mortar sales — a concern that retail sellers have brought up many times over the years in the debate over whether to authorize iLottery. "In every state that had online lottery, their retail sales grew at a faster pace than states that didn't have online lottery, and it's because of that ecosystem that gets grown," Bracken told reporters. "I mean, the numbers don't lie. It's every state that has online lottery." Online players will win bonuses that are only redeemable in retail locations, Bracken said. "So, the retail partners really win in this as well," he said. "It really kind of helps balance this kind of ecosystem between retail and online." Goldberg said there's a "blackout" on discussing the details of what the design of online lottery products will look like in Massachusetts to protect the integrity of the RFP process, but she and Bracken said it will look similar to online lotteries in other states, like New Hampshire. "We're going to offer full suite of offerings from all of our draw games, new additional draw games that are only going to be available online, as well as a suite of what we call e-instants, which are really an online type version of an instant ticket reveal game, very similar to what you'll see in other states that have online lotteries," Bracken said. "So we're really excited."