GAME OVER FOR WASHINGTON DC ONLINE GAMBLING?
10 February 2012
Full city council votes 10 - 2 for repeal of
controversial internet gambling law
Killed before implementation appears to be the fate
of Washington DC's online gambling law; the city council
voted 10 -2 Tuesday to repeal the legislation, which was
passed over a year ago attached to a supplementary
budget bill but has been caught up in contract
irregularities involving the city lottery (see previous
InfoPowa reports).
Political observers have
opined that the repeal of the online gambling law was
part of a wider move by councillors to 'reconfigure' the
controversial lottery contract, worth around $38
million.
The decision came despite a last-minute
offer by the law's introducer, Councillor Michael A.
Brown, to submit a compromise bill, and a communication
from Mayor Vincent C. Gray saying he would conditionally
support a re-bid of the entire contract if the council
eventually revives i-gaming.
Mayor Gray has
flip-flopped on the issue, initially supporting i-gaming
and later withdrawing his support on the grounds that
the matter had become too controversial (see previous
InfoPowa reports).
Gray said his position on the
lottery contract itself was predicated on the passage of
an i-gaming law "in a much more publicly transparent
manner" than the way it was passed by council in
December 2010.
A triumphant Councillor Jack
Evans, who has been the law's principal opponent and is
chairman of the city's Revenue and Finance Committee,
warned that more scrutiny of the lottery contract would
be forthcoming.
Evans urged his fellow
councillors to vote on any potential re-bid before
lobbyists "swooped down on council members," saying:
""There are so many questions about the lottery
contract. It was really not done the way it should have
been done."
Council member Tommy Wells, who
co-sponsored the repeal bill, said "I certainly have a
lot of questions about the process of selecting the
[local] partner in the lottery contract, and that's a
conversation I will be having with Mr. Evans."
The Washington Post reported that recent concerns about
i-gaming stemmed from a report by D.C. Inspector General
Charles J. Willoughby, who determined that the city's
lottery contract with the Greek company Intralot was
"materially changed" to include internet gambling
shortly after its approval in December 2009. Council
members in favour of the repeal said they had no way of
knowing that "non-traditional" games in the contract
would later be specified as internet gambling.
Further complicating the issue were irregularities in
the lottery approval process and vetting flaws regarding
Intralot's local partner, businessman Emmanuel S.
Bailey. Bailey was found by the inspector general to
have misrepresented his Veteran Services Corp. firm's
business activities during its bid for a stake in the
lottery contract.
Intralot and VSC have a joint
venture which has spent $22 million launching the
overall lottery system. Among those funds was between $5
million and $7 million for the i-gaming elements that
have now been thrust into limbo by the council vote.
VSC took a loan from Intralot to pay its JV
contribution.
Councillor Brown reiterated that
online gambling was a good thing for the District, and
said that the council should not have voted for repeal,
even if members wanted to revisit the underlying
contract. He reminded councillors that the public was
largely in favour of internet gambling at a series of
community meetings held by the DC Lottery late last
year.
Some councillors voted for the repeal but
were not against online gambling per se; it was felt
that the process had been tainted and should be
re-started from scratch.
In the aftermath of the
vote, recriminations and denials were reported to have
flown between various city officials regarding the
procurement and processing procedures on the contract.
Intralot spokesman Byron Boothe, commenting on the
repeal vote, said: "Intralot is disappointed in the
council vote today. We look forward to assisting the
D.C. Lottery as they move forward in exploring their
space in today's ever-changing gaming world."
Online Casino News Courtesy of
Infopowa
More news here.
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