Illinois Lottery Gives Northstar The Boot

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Aug 22, 2014

Failure to meet performance targets has cost private lottery company $60 million

InfoPowa readers may remember the furore around the privatisation of the Illinois state lottery three or more years ago, when politicians and action groups fiercely debated and criticised a decision to hand over the management of the enterprise to the Northstar Lottery Group for ten years on promises of better returns.
Northstar, despite backing by major lottery companies GTech and Scientific Games, has clearly underperformed, failing to meet its own targets and consequently having to pay penalities reported to be in the region of $60 million so far.
The company is therefore probably relieved that the state government has decided to end the agreement, with state governor Pat Quinn advising Crain's Chicago Business that the deal was off due to Northstar's inability to meet its targets.
The governor's office did not clarify the lottery's course from this point when asked whether it would revert to state management or be the subject of another privatisation tender.

Online Casino News Courtesy of Infopowa

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.


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