Report: Without changes, selling lottery doesn’t add up

Posted: 3/28/08

Report: Without changes,
selling lottery doesn’t add up

By John Hall

Texas Baptist Communications

AUSTIN—Unless gambling is expanded, selling the lottery will not produce the $14 billion Gov. Rick Perry has estimated, according to a report released by a watchdog group March 26.

Texans for Public Justice reports that documents given to the governor’s office suggest gambling in Texas would need to be expanded in order to generate the kind of income Perry has suggested. The extension of gambling would allow the lottery to show increasing sales, making it more attractive to bidders.

In nonbinding opinions, Texas Attorney Gen. Greg Abbott already has stated some of the proposed gambling expansions are unconstitutional. Among the suggested expansion options are keno, video lottery terminals and Internet gaming.

But Aces Wired, a Dallas company that operates games some say blur legal lines, is pushing the governor to privatize the lottery, the report said.

“Projections that the gambling industry privately submitted to the governor’s office make clear that the state cannot raise a purse of this size unless it resigns itself to the proliferation of more gambling in potentially more-addictive forms,” the report reads. “If Texans oppose such a gambling expansion, then these documents suggest that what they should play with the Texas lottery games is Texas Hold ‘Em.”

Suzii Paynter, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Christian Life Commission, said the report is further confirmation additional privatization of the lottery would be a blunder.

“Many of the functions that can be effectively and efficiently privatized have been privatized in Texas,” she said. “To consider an expansion of gambling, adding more games that would bring a lot of negative consequences just to drive up the price, would be a bad idea.”