Friday, October 16, 2015

Illinois Cannot Pay Its Lottery Winners

Zero Hedge reports on this issue.

I can't tell everything I know about this, but in the realm of publicly available information, Illinois was one of the first states to go with privatization of its state-run lottery.  The privatization produced significant increases in revenue.  However, the increases were less than the increases promised by the private contractor.  This allowed Illinois to void its contract and return control to the state lottery commission.  As far as I know, that has not helped revenues. 

Knowing how this is supposed to work, I can only assume that money from ticket sales has been diverted from the jackpot payouts to other expenditures.  They are essentially breaking their own law and, if it were any other state, the state's attorney general would already be indicting people.  Since it is probably the most corrupt state in America, no one will be indicted unless the Feds step in -- not likely under Obama's Department of Just-Us. 

When I heard about the state reneging on privatization, my first thought was that it was less about the revenue shortfall than the loss of opportunities for graft.  

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