On October 20th, 2006 a "troubling impression" was created after New Jersey decided to toss out a Lottery Commission contract awarded to a company whose Trenton lobbyist was also doing public relations for the lottery itself.
The nation's two major lottery-management companies were locked into conflict by the eminent issue.
The companies were GTech Corporation of West Greenwich, R.I., which had landed the contract, and Scientific Games International of New York City, which despite bidding lower, lost the work; both are manufacturers and providers of computers, tickets and dispensers, and other state-lottery hardware and software.
GTech had bid $106.7 million to do the work and had hired the MWW Group, which was doing public relations for the Lottery Commission, as its lobbyist in Trenton while Scientific Games had bid $75 million comparably nearly $32 million less.
State Treasurer Bradley Abelow's decision would mean the bid process will be reopened. Future bidders were also ordered by Abelow to disclose potential conflicts of interest.
Now that each side knows what the other had to offer, both sides agree that the re-bidding will be trickier. Hard scrutiny in the media followed the decision, on a contract that fundamentally operates the system of more than 6,000 lottery terminals.
An evaluation committee had exaggerated the company's weaknesses while ignoring GTech's, stated Scientific Games.
According to Assemblywoman Jennifer Beck, she never worked on the contract and only lobbied for GTech's interest in bringing keno and video lottery terminals to New Jersey. Beck, R-Monmouth, left her position as an MWW lobbyist before running for the Assembly in 2005.
Tuesday, November 21 , 2006
Louis Blechdom
