3 Companies Bid on Texas Lottery

Big profits are in order for which ever company wins competition to run Texas' state lottery. Here's the article from the associated press.

3 big companies bid to run lucrative Texas Lottery

AUSTIN, Texas — Three major gambling companies entered the competition by Tuesday to run Texas' lottery — a massive operation that could pay $100 million per year to the winning bidder.

Scientific Games Corp., Intralot Inc. and GTECH Corp., which holds the current Texas operations contract, submitted cost proposals for the games, said Texas Lottery Commission spokesman Bobby Heith.

All are prominent companies in the lottery and gambling business worldwide and frequently compete with one another for U.S. state lottery contracts. They've been analyzing the Texas operation for months leading up to Tuesday's bid deadline. Commission officials did not release financial details of their proposals, and the companies would not comment. Technical proposals are due Wednesday.

A decision on the winning bid is expected by late September.

"The evaluation process starts," Heith said. "That's the next step."

The bidding has been tied up in controversy this year because a consulting company the Texas commission hired to help write the bid request had been doing business with GTECH. That led to questions about whether GTECH has an unfair advantage. The commission has canceled its contract with that consultant, Gartner Inc. Read the whole article...