The Maryland State Lottery Agency is petitioning to spend up to ninety-nine million dollars over the span of five years to continue its agreement with the organization that manages the system utilized to manage all of its gaming systems all over the state.
The deal, coming before the Board of Public Works (BPW) at its meeting on May 19th, 2010, Wednesday, would come on top of an eighty-one million dollars deal that is set to expire in June 2011. The gaming contractor, Scientific Games International from Georgia, has been working under that agreement since 2005.
The agency wants to use its five-year renewal choice under the agreement, which state lottery officials say brings in a yearly $1.6 billion dollars in revenue for Maryland.
The agency's director of procurement, Robert Howells, said that the agreement includes all gaming equipment like Maryland's keno system, the satellite dishes that allow the different phases of the lottery system to connect and others.
Howells said that it is the operating system that manages the whole lottery division of the business. The system will not function under Maryland's slot machine program, which is operated under another lottery I.T. agreement approved in January 2010. That agreement could cost up to forty million dollars.
Howells explained before the BPW could cost less than the $99 million dollars price tag stated in official documents. Maryland would have to fulfill the projections that say that the state lottery profits will grow in the next few years for it to cost that much amount of money.
Howell said that Scientific Games will be paid based on the earnings of the state from its games like keno.
News Released: [28-07]
John Sullivan
