Lottery Service War: 1
In the United States one of the biggest ways to generate tax revenue is through
lotteries. Online casinos and internet gambling have been banned in the United
States so they are not a way for the tax revenues to get generated any more. It
was recently announced by the Louisiana Lottery Corporation that they have
signed a contract with Intralot to run the state’s lottery. The Greek lottery
systems supplier will begin to run the state’s lottery starting in July of 2010.
The contract states that Intralot will have to supply the Louisiana Lottery
Corporation with 2,800 point of sale terminals and other sales equipment that is
to last the state lottery system for the next ten years. The online casino
industry has tried to get in on the lottery action for a while now, but the
farthest that they have been able to get is that some states allow their
citizens to buy lottery tickets for the State lottery online.
The Chief Executive Officer for Intralot, Constantinos Antonopoulos has made
statements regarding the future of his company. He has made it very clear that
the down turn in the economy has meant great things for his company as
governments are looking for more ways to create revenue to counteract the
deficits. In the United States they are definitely counting on the tax that
lotteries bring in because unlike many countries the online casino industry is
not a solid source of tax revenue. Antonopoulos also added that the current
figures for his lottery system supplier company are up 28 percent when compared
to last year’s figures. This is not the first time that Intralot has dealt
business in the United States. This license that they signed with the Louisiana
Lottery Corporation is the seventh lottery license contract that they have been
able to obtain within the past two years.