GTECH Creating Gambling Monopoly In Kansas With Latest Score

The state of Kansas has taken a long time to put in place casinos in the state. Since they were approved, the Kansas Lottery Commission has taken their time in awarding contracts to operators of the five casinos that are on the horizon.

On Wednesday, the Commission took steps towards those casinos becoming a reality when they announced they had awarded a contract to GTECH Corp. to run the central computer system that will control slots at the casinos.

GTECH moves closer to having a monopoly on all gambling in the state of Kansas. They already operate the online games and terminals for the Lottery, although their have been some mistakes made by the company in regards to the Lottery.

The operating system reported the wrong winning numbers back on June 29th and 30th and July 1st. The state had to pay out the correct winning numbers as well as the numbers that were reported incorrectly. The state has not yet decided what they will charge GTECH for the mistake.

The new contract has nothing to do with the mistakes that were made, a point that was pointed out by Executive Director of the Lottery, Ed Van Patten. "We converted to a new gaming system and the software they used in the conversion was defective. It was totally unrelated to the new contract. They are a different division in the company," he said.

GTECH beat out their only competition which came from Scientific Games Corp.. "It came down to two excellent systems and what we could negotiate on price and other bells and whistles," said the Lottery's Gaming Director, Keith Kocher.

November 13, 2008
Posted By Larry Rutherford
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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