Ohio Senate bill includes privatizing lottery

Comment #4

Stack47 — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:57:33 GMT

The Ohio Governor has always chosen the lottery director who brought in their people to run it. This law will prevent any future Governor of doing the same. Before the director couldn't use lottery profits as bonuses to entice more gaming savvy people, I'll bet GTECH will.

Comment #3

RJOh — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:31:41 GMT

When Gov. Kasich was running for the office he promised to bring in business people he met while working on wall street to run the lottery and the proposed casinos more efficiently and generate more money, the voters thought he meant generate it for the state.

Comment #2

rdgrnr — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:00:52 GMT

And like GTECH's proposal, the Senate budget bill would exempt the company that wins the lottery contract from paying taxes on its fees.

There's a red flag.

They have different entities fighting for the contract and they give away the potential tax revenue like they have to entice them with a bonus?

Somebody's palm got greased on this one.

Comment #1

HaveABall — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:14:20 GMT

Appears that GTECH's lobbyist, Mike Dawson, has fabulous connections and impacts within Ohio legislation. The work of a lobbyist/negotiator can be powerful and sometimes difficult to reverse

Ohio Senate bill includes privatizing lottery

Lottery Post — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:21:43 GMT

Critics say gaming corp. drafted language

The Ohio Senate's latest version of the state budget bill includes language to privatize the Ohio Lottery that is nearly identical to legislation drafted by a gaming company hoping to manage the $2.5 billion agency's day-to-day operations.

The language, drafted by GTECH, an industry giant that once ran the Ohio Lottery's back-office operations, was added to the massive budget bill virtually unchanged and without any public hearing. The inclusion of... [ More ]