The Florida Lottery will continue to procure the 657,000 scratch-off tickets it sells each year from Scientific Games, after signing a new contract with the US based full-service lottery supplier worth at least $477m.
A Lottery evaluation committee met in a public meeting last Monday and recommended Scientific Games as the primary supplier of the state’s scratch-off ticket program.
Scientific Games has produced the state’s scratch-off tickets since 2008, making $476.8 million according to records from the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS). The deal was set to expire at the end of September.
It was chosen over both International Game Technology (IGT) – awarded a $770m contract with the lottery in March 2018 to manage the department’s network of ticket-selling machines – and Pollard Banknote, the Canada-based instant ticket provider paid $770,000 by the lottery in September 2017 for the licensing of a Pac-Man scratch-off game.
The marketing plan from Scientific Games is, according to Florida Politics, expected to generate $8.5bn in additional education funds for Florida students, including the financing of additional 626,000 Bright Futures Scholarships in the years ahead.
The same publication reported that the Florida Lottery invested $1.9bn in education during the year ending 30 June, breaking a record set for the corresponding period of 2017/18 when it contributed $1.7bn to the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund.
The deal comes after state lottery officials warned a consortium of state budget forecasters about FL HB629 (19R), a measure that sought to affix warning labels about the dangers of gambling on every lottery ticket sold.
DeSantis vetoed the bill on 28 June, saying the benefits of the measure failed to outweigh the potential $79m loss in revenue to a trust fund supporting the Bright Futures Scholarship, which is funded by lottery revenue.