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GOP legislators question math in Texas lottery-sale planNews Story
Texas Gov. Rick Perry's proposal to sell off the state lottery to fund cancer research and health insurance was met with skepticism Tuesday from a number of key Republican lawmakers who said the numbers don't add up. I don't know anyone who's supporting it, said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee. I'd give it only a 10 percent chance of passing. In an e-mail, Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, who heads the Senate State Affairs Committee, sa
Feb 9, 2007, 8:15 pm - Lottery News

Texas Gov. proposes selling the lotteryNews Story
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday that his State of the State address on Tuesday would include a plan to fully privatize the Texas Lottery by selling it to private interests. Perry said such a sale would raise substantial funds that could be used for health care and research. Other states, including Illinois and Indiana, are looking into the concept, which allows a state to collect a large lump sum to replace future lottery revenue. The proposal is likely to be controversial because t
Feb 2, 2007, 5:46 pm - Lottery News

Company running most lottery games worldwide has history of scandalNews Story
The company behind the more than 16,000 machines that spit out New York Lottery tickets has been linked to scandals across the country and around the globe. Bribery allegations led a co-founder to quit his job as chairman. Its lobbyists have run afoul of the law in several states, including New York. Former government officials have received lucrative consulting contracts. And in summer 2006, an investigation in Texas found that the company, GTECH Holdings Corp., doled out tens of millions
Jan 31, 2007, 5:30 am - Lottery News

Lottery foes try to restrict gambling, with little successNews Story
Some New York lawmakers want the state to tell lottery-ticket buyers how slim the odds are of winning, and raise the gambling age from 18 to 21 to try to discourage gambling sprees. But those who oppose change have a ready rejoinder: The state is, in effect, addicted to the billions in revenue that Lottery games generate. The status quo is likely to prevail. If you put in the ad 'The New York Lottery jackpot is now $10 million' and in the next graph say the odds of wining are 1 in 12 m
Jan 31, 2007, 12:51 am - Lottery News

Nationwide, lotteries pay for far more than educationNews Story
Martha Keller is a 78-year-old resident of Altoona, Pa., who frequently takes the bus from her apartment on Walnut Avenue to her doctor's office or the local senior center. Chandni Amin is a 19-year-old nursing student at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Keller and Amin have little in common save for one thing both are benefiting directly from money raised by state lotteries. Lotteries help pay for everything from education to economic development, buses to baseball stadiums. In Penn
Jan 31, 2007, 12:06 am - Lottery News

N.Y. Gov. vows to review Lottery operationsNews Story
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is pledging to review the New York Lottery's operations amid bipartisan calls for reform prompted by a media report revealing that billions of dollars in bets were kept off the Lottery's books. Several state legislators said yesterday that the Lottery Division needed to fully account for all the cash generated by its video lottery terminals, after it was reported that only a portion of wagers was included in the Lottery's financial reports. This is a little
Jan 30, 2007, 7:36 pm - Lottery News

New York Lottery accounting method questionedNews Story
Billions of dollars in bets are kept off the New York Lottery's books. That's because the state Lottery Division does not publicly report the wagers on its video games that go to gamblers as prizes. The figures aren't included in the Lottery's annual reports or audited financial statements, and the Lottery initially declined requests for the amounts wagered on the video machines, and the prizes paid, since the machines were introduced in 2004. Late yesterday, however, a Lottery official
Jan 30, 2007, 6:48 pm - Lottery News

Michigan latest state to consider selling its lotteryNews Story
'Bad idea' continues its rampage through the USA Michigan has become the latest in a growing list of states to consider selling off its state lottery in a scheme to fix the state's budget problems. The move was being discussed at the Capitol as lawmakers and administrators look for ways to deal with an $800 million budget shortfall this year, and possibly even larger hole in the year ahead. Democrat Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to announce plans for dealing with the state's struct
Jan 27, 2007, 9:34 am - Lottery News

Antigua gets favorable WTO gambling ruling over U.S.News Story
The United States has suffered a new setback in a four-year-old legal battle with Antigua and Barbuda over U.S. restrictions on Internet gambling, a U.S. trade official said on Thursday. At issue is an April 2005 World Trade Organization ruling against U.S. prohibitions on online horse race betting. Since then, the U.S. Congress has passed additional legislation to ban certain financial transactions related to gambling over the Internet. Gretchen Hamel, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Repre
Jan 27, 2007, 8:46 am - Lottery News

Despite strong opposition, Indiana moves ahead with selling lotteryNews Story
Indiana is considering a Wall Street investment firm to help it pull together a plan to lease the Hoosier Lottery, despite legislative skepticism that could kill the deal. Gov. Mitch Daniels said Friday the administration is negotiating a contract with Morgan Stanley to test the market. A similar contract with Goldman Sachs Co. to market the Indiana Toll Road last year was worth about $20 million. The Toll Road eventually was leased for 75 years for $3.8 billion, and the state has esti
Jan 23, 2007, 10:45 am - Lottery News