News-Record.com

Now that our friendly local corporate trainers are done with their two days of teaching me ... something or other, I'm sure it was important ... let's look around at what I've been missing lottery-wise.

First off, the lottery has a new web site: http://lottery.nc.gov. I don't see any reason they couldn't keep that address, so all you folks who rushed out and bought up domain names might be out of luck.

Among the first items posted is a help wanted advertisement for an executive director. In case you're thinking of applying:

The Executive Director must have considerable management and operation experience and knowledge of the state-sponsored lottery industry. Experience with start up of a state lottery is preferred. The successful candidate will have demonstrated commitment to integrity and the promotion of responsible gaming. Candidates should have substantial experience with personnel supervision, contract and financial management, public relations, and strong leadership.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Next up, I have to give props to another paper for doing something I wish I had thought about. The Raleigh News & Observer asked for and got e-mails from Speaker Jim Black's office regarding the lottery.

The e-mails showed that one of the two biggest lottery vendors, Scientific Games, helped write the lottery law. Click here to read the story. (You may have to register as a user.)

There is no question this looks hinky. But it's a good example of something that goes on quite a bit down at the legislature. Lobbyists submit proposed wording and re-wording of legislation all the time. In this case, the lobbyists in question happen to have left a particularly vulnerable trail of bread crumbs, but this isn't a unique circumstance as far as folks with interest in a particular piece of legislation helping to shape that legislation.

It will make the RFP and other contracting maneuvers very interesting to watch though. And if Scientific Games does get a big fat lottery contract, you might expect questions to persist.

By the way, expect a lot of sniping back and forth between Scientific Games and their chief rival, GTECH. These folks go after each other in lots of states. Wars-of-words, lawsuits and political back-door dealings seem to be pretty much par for the course with these two.

Of course, at least one lottery commissioner has talked about having some of the work - computer networking and such - that a vendor usually does undertaken by the state itself. Malachi Greene, of Charlotte, mentioned after the first lottery commission meeting that he was not entirely convinced the state lottery should be contracting all the work out. It will be interesting to see if anyone other commissioners join him in that view.