Intralot Sued for Fraud in Washington D.C. Lottery Deal

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00:00And then finally, an article that I think needs some explanation here.

00:04I saw this story when it happened, Sam, and then I read it, wasn't completely understanding

00:09it.

00:10I now read your guy's article.

00:11It's making me a little bit more enlightened on the situation, but I'll start, you'll finish.

00:17Easiest way to do this.

00:18And by the way, you can read about this story and more at legalsportsreport.com.

00:21There's a company called Intralot.

00:22They run the lottery system in Washington, DC.

00:26They were being sued.

00:27They were apparently, allegedly defrauding another company here, $6.5 million to actually

00:34the Washington DC itself.

00:37Please explain this to all of my viewers here, because it took me a couple of times to get

00:40it.

00:41Yeah, it's a really, it's a really convoluted story.

00:44It's almost, it's complicated to believe just because you kind of can't believe this happened.

00:48So in Washington DC, when they legalized sports betting, they had a bidding process for the

00:53company that would then run the sports betting app for the district.

00:59So rather than open it up to a competitive bidding process where a number of apps could

01:03enter this company, Intralot, which is a Greek company, it runs a couple of sports betting

01:08apps across the country.

01:09They had this app called Gambit DC, which if you know anything about Gambit DC is most

01:13people don't like it.

01:14Most people hated it.

01:15You know, the lines were terrible.

01:17It crashed during Superbowls.

01:18It actually lost the district tons of money because nobody was using it, even though it

01:22was the only option in town, more people going offshore.

01:26Essentially how they got the district to give them that one, that exclusivity, the monopoly

01:30over Washington DC was by telling them that they were working with this company that was

01:35contracting with locals in DC and sort of keeping it all in the city.

01:40So they're thereby providing an economic benefit to the city.

01:43That company was a veterans service corporation.

01:45They promised they would perform half the work of the contract.

01:48But then it came out under this investigation that actually that was not true.

01:52They were not performing half of the work, and they were essentially defrauding the city

01:56in order to get this exclusive contract.

01:58So they got hit with a $6.5 million fine, which I don't know, as far as fines go, that

02:04seems pretty light for defrauding an entire city and preventing other operators from entering.

02:09Ever since then, now you have more apps in town.

02:12FanDuel replaced it this past year, and then they added more apps in general.

02:17Ever since Intralot or Gambit DC was no longer the only game in town, the revenue that the

02:22district has collected is up about 400% year over year.

02:26So that just shows you how they were running things top to bottom, but really leaves some

02:30kind of questions into what DC was thinking just awarding this contract without really

02:34doing any back-end legwork.

02:36And now they get an extra $6.5 million out of it, but yeah, just a crazy story.

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