The current deal is set to expire September 30

Florida Lottery to renew partnership with Scientific Games for scratch-off tickets

Florida Lottery invested USD 1.9 billion in education funding during the fiscal year ending June 30. The Bright Futures Scholarship, which is funded by lottery revenue.
2019-08-22
Reading time 2:08 min
The new contract would be worth at least USD 477 million. Scientific Games has produced the state's scratch-off tickets since 2008, and Tuesday was chosen over two other vendors. SG marketing plan is expected to generate USD 8.5 billion in additional education funds for Florida students, including the financing of additional 626,000 Bright Futures Scholarships in the years ahead.

The Florida Lottery said it would continue to procure the 657,000 scratch-off tickets it sells each year from its current vendor under a new contract worth at least $477 million.

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. The state Department of Lottery late Tuesday published the decision to finalize a deal with Scientific Games Corp., extending the state’s more than 30-year-long partnership with the company.

Scientific Games has produced the state's scratch-off tickets since 2008, a deal set to expire September 30 after making the company $476.8 million, according to Florida’s Department of Financial Services (DFS) records cited by POLITICO Pro.

The lottery will discuss the pending deal at an August 28 meeting and will accept protests beginning Tuesday.

Scientific Games was chosen over two other companies that also responded to a September 28 invitation to negotiate. One bidder, International Game Technology (IGT), was awarded a $770 million contract with the lottery in March 2018 to manage the department's network of ticket-selling machines, according to DFS records. The other bidder was Canada-based Pollard Banknote, which was paid $770,000 by the lottery in September 2017 for the licensing of a Pac-Man scratch-off game, DFS records show.

State revenue forecasts show scratch-off ticket sales will increase over the next few years. Like the current contract, Scientific Games' profit under the new agreement would be based on the number of tickets produced. The Lottery Revenue Estimating Conference “reported in a Friday meeting that scratch-off sales are through the roof — coming in $50 million higher than what the Lottery estimated for the fiscal year so far. Much of that growth was attributed to the Lottery’s new $10 scratch-off ticket,” according to Florida Politics.

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. Governor Ronald Dion DeSantis vetoed the bill on June 28, saying the benefits of the measure failed to outweigh the potential $79 million loss in revenue to a trust fund supporting the Bright Futures Scholarship, which is funded by lottery revenue.

Scientific Games’ marketing plan is expected to generate $8.5 billion in additional education funds for Florida students, including the financing of additional 626,000 Bright Futures Scholarships in the years ahead.

The Lottery invested $1.9 billion in education funding during the fiscal year ending June 30. That breaks the record set in the 2017-18 fiscal year when the Florida Lottery contributed $1.7 billion to the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund.

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