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Pennsylvania Lottery's online lottery games will no longer be marketed as "slot-style" or "casino-style" but apparently will continue to operate the way they have been since their roll out in late May.

That was the only concession the state Department of Revenue, which oversees the lottery, indicated it would make in response to a call from all 13 of the state's casino operators to suspend ILottery which they see as direct and illegal intrusion into the online games they intend to offer.

Revenue Secretary C. Daniel Hassell admitted in a June 29 letter to Harrisburg lawyer Mark Stewart, who is representing the interests of the casinos, that the way the iLottery was advertised and description of iLottery products was a mistake.

He explained that affiliates of its iLottery vendor, Scientific Games International, created those ads using their own graphics and language, not that of the lottery's. Upon being notified of this, Hassell stated, "The Pennsylvania Lottery addressed this inaccuracy in the affiliates' graphic and language immediately."

But the advertising was one of several concerns for the casinos that Stewart mentioned in a June 27 letter to Hassell. He called on Hassell to pull the plug on iLottery until they could "work collaboratively with the gaming industry to develop a lawful iLottery program."

An attempt on Monday to contact Stewart for comment about Hassell's response was unsuccessful.

In his letter to Hassell, Stewart stated, "in virtually every way imaginable, lottery's iLottery program mimics a casino operation simulated casino-style games" from the penny and dime games that iLottery offers which is different from the other lottery products to even borrowing the names of games and themes of popular slots games and more.

None of the casinos have yet launched their own online games, said Gaming Control Board spokesman Doug Harbach. He explained that they are in the application period but the board expects to begin receiving those petitions soon.

The massive gambling expansion law that Gov. Tom Wolf and lawmakers signed off on last year opened the door for casinos and the lottery to begin offering online games. But it explicitly prohibited lottery, which benefits senior citizens, from offering "interactive lottery games which simulate casino-style games."

Moreover, the casinos take offense to the new lottery games being available to 18-year-olds, while their own market is restricted to those who are ages 21 and up.

"If these same individuals tried to play the same games at our casinos... the players would be prosecuted and placed on the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board's exclusion list, while we would face tens of thousands of dollars in  PGCB-imposed fines," Stewart stated in his letter to Hassell.

He concluded by saying if the department is unwilling to "cease immediately the current unlawful iLottery program, we will be forced to consider all actions available to us to preserve our rights ... and remedy the harm being caused to those rights and the billions of dollars we have collectively invested in an generated for the commonwealth."