DC Council Votes To Award Sports Betting Contract To Intralot Despite Public Concern

More than six months after passing an enabling law, the District of Columbia is finally on the road to regulated sports betting.

Council members voted on Tuesday to approve the sole-source, no-bid contract covering lottery and sports betting operations for the next five years. According to city officials, the $215 million deal with Intralot provides the most expedient solution with the greatest return on its investment.

Industry sharps and stakeholders argued otherwise right up until the last vote, but the Greek company had more than just its technology working in its favor. A string of ethical questions surrounding the bill's sponsor and his alleged ties to the troubled contractor still linger over the new DC sports betting law.

DC Council accepts Intralot deal

Interested observers peeking into the legislative process were treated to quite a spectacle on Tuesday.

The ongoing investigation into Councilmember Jack Evans dominated the hearing, calling into question every law he's touched. The representative from Ward 2 is both the chief proponent of expedited DC sports betting and a man with a few too many connections to Intralot. His business dealings, both in gambling and in other industries, has been the subject of much reporting and at least one FBI raid in recent weeks.

“The whole thing stinks,” as Councilmember Elissa Silverman pointed out, but Evans has friends in high places.

Councilmember Phil Mendelson is the city's key figure, the chairman of the Committee of the Whole and a supporter of Evans and his efforts to install legalized, monopolized sports betting. As the overseer of the schedule, Mendelson did everything he could to garner the requisite seven votes.

Seeing a potential swing candidate in the chamber, the chairman rearranged the calendar to push a bill from Councilmember Vincent Gray to the top. Gray was eager to point out that his proposal to reallocate the revenue from sports betting had nothing to do with any specific operator and urged passage.

Despite his claims, it appeared that his vote on the contract hinged on adoption of his amendment.

The committee rejected their colleague's proposal, but he did not reject the Intralot contract. Gray ultimately cast the deciding vote as expected, but it was a surprise yes to bring the tally to 7-5 in favor of the deal.

Coming soon: DC sports lottery

Anyone who's spent any time watching the nascent US sports betting market will understand the broad effects that come from competition — both for bettors and for the industry as a whole.

Look no further than New Jersey, where a competitive framework has facilitated more than $3 billion in total wagers through the first year of operation. Even DraftKings and FanDuel, which compete with each other there and elsewhere, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post urging DC lawmakers to open up the market.

In the end, though, a desire to beat sports betting ghosts in Virginia and Maryland to market clouded the logic of enough city officials to land Intralot the gig in the nation's capital. And that's a real shame for bettors.

What lawmakers have authorized — whether they realize it or not — is a fixed-payout sports lottery product that won't look anything like traditional sports betting. Intralot's proud claim that it will hold as much as 30% of all wagers was likely the main factor that earned it the contract.

The post DC Council Votes To Award Sports Betting Contract To Intralot Despite Public Concern appeared first on Legal Sports Report.

Original source: https://www.legalsportsreport.com/34268/dc-sports-betting-intralot-contract-accepted/

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