Michael Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported today that a legislative committee got notice yesterday they’d be asked today to approve a renegotiated contract with a major lottery vendor, Scientific Games International.
The deal will extend the vendor’s contract to handle scratch-off tickets — originally set to expire next August but later extended three years to 2019 — until 2026 They’ll get a smaller percentage of scratch-off sales, a deal that could save the lottery $1.6 million a year or so, unless sales increase to a level at which the vendor qualifies for bonuses.
Good deal? Who knows? Done deal? You betcha.
Sen. Bruce Maloch, a Magnolia Democrat, objected to quick consideration. Wickline quoted him:
He hopes a decision is delayed “if for no other reason than the timeliness of notice to the members, fairness and transparency to the public and any interested parties.”
Legislators may not have known, but I did. This extension was whispered to me by a non-legislator days ago. I forgot to make a late check yesterday to see if the proposal was on file yet for today’s legislative committee meeting. I’m embarrassed by my sloth, but I figured it didn’t matter much anyway. Republicans have taken over the lottery and put it under the governor with a planned consultant using Republican lobbyists. In other words, this deal is fully baked. What the Hutchinson administration wants it will get
Here’s the pitch: The Scientific Games savings will pay for the $750,000 a year that the Republican-backed consulting group, Camelot Global Services, is going to get for running the show in the future. Also it will free $1 million a year for more scholarships.
The big future money for Camelot will be bonuses for exceeding net revenue targets — targets made easier to reach by disallowing significant expenses in the formula and also by setting a target that doesn’t take some recent sales increases into account. If they deliver, their 15 percent take will be huge, but those backing the deal will point to the 85 percent share in (somewhat) new money for scholarships.
Maybe Camelot does know ways to separate more money from more Arkansas poor people so that new dollars will be available to ease college costs for the largely middle class and white students who’ll benefit thanks to the higher scholarship qualification standards the Republican legislature has imposed. That’s the idea, anyway. And Camelot is an international outfit that has reason to want to do well in what will be a high-profile deal,
Other states have managed to grow lotteries, while Arkansas take has declined, so growth potential is not out of the question. But the hope is against a backdrop of decisions by some states to go to video lottery terminals (essentially slot machines) that are outlawed here and against the expanding range of gambling activities now available legally, increasingly by Internet. Not to mention a couple of Arkansas casinos, plus casinos in several border states. And not to mention periodic news of rigging of lottery games in other states.
We’ll see. Deal is done.
UPDATE: Contract changes got committee approval today, though there was some opposition.