Christie deal gives NJ lottery to Italy gambling billionaire, Perelman
Gtech, Scientific Games get preliminary nod
Christie deal gives NJ lottery to Italy gambling billionaire, Perelman
Joseph N. DiStefano
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's planned private outsourcing of the state-run New Jersey lottery - see my colleague Matt Katz's story here -- would benefit two big gambling companies controlled by out-of-state billionaires.
Christie's pick for the job, the Northstar lottery group, which already runs the struggling Illinois state lottery, includes: - Gtech Holdings, based in Providence, Rhode Island, and owned by Lottomatica Group S.p.A., which runs the Italian national lottery and is majority-controlled by Italian billionaire Marco Drago's De Agostini S.p.A. investment group, with a 53% stake, worth more than $2 billion; - Scientific Games Corp., New York, a publicly-traded company whose major owner is Ronald Owen Perelman, the New York-based, Elkins Park-raised (corrected) billionaire owner of MacAndrews & Forbes, Revlon and many other companies. Perelman owns a 38% stake worth around $300 million.
The Gtech-Scientific Games partnership pledged $120 million as a cash reserve, to guarantee state income against a shortfall (which happened to Northstar in Illinois), to win Gov. Christie's support.
Ironically, Gtech cited Pennsylvania's $200 million deposit requirement as a reason for dropping out of bidding to run Pennsylvania's lottery.
Pa. Gov. Gov. Tom Corbett's aides chose the only remaining bidder, U.K.-based Camelot Global Services, to privatize the Pennsylvania Lottery after Camelot's owner, the Ontario (Canada) Teachers Pension Program, agreed to commit $150 million and lend another $50 million. Scientific Games provides ticketing services to the Pa. lottery, among its other clients.
Nice article you helmet! It really pains you to see Christie getting such high approval numbers.— Handsome B. Wonderful- he must have talked to corbett, " monkey se, monkey do "— eddiot
This also is a strategy to begin more distasteful elements of gambling. Keno for instance is a minute by minute form of gambling which ultimately keeps the rich (Perelman) rich and the poor (50% of lottery winners) poor.
Education??????? Ha Ha...More of our doctors, nurses, engineers and spelling bee champions are born overseas.— Cuddles- And people are asking, "where are the jobs?". Outsourced by republicans.— TopCat#1
- Who has been president for 4 years genius? How low has unemployment been in the last 4 years?— Keep The Change
- To the cronies go the spoils. And to the public go the...— WallStreetExaminer
- Conservatism at its finest. Continue the upward flow of money to the extreme wealthy.— slanted and enchanted
- The Provenzano Family must be very happy with this deal. Likewise the Cammora.— Bob Calvin
- Sorry. I misspelled it. Camorra. Nice to know the money from the lotteries will be safely deposited in Naples and Palermo.— Bob Calvin
- A friend once told me that "The lottery is the thief of the poor." He won't get any of my Powerball jackpot when I hit tonight.— oh...thatguy
Wow! And to think that to pay sales taxes to the state of NJ for our little non-profit we must affirm that no monies come from foreign sources.— hapedaze- Why is this move by Christie and Corbett beginning to smell like a slit trench? Is there collusion amongst the players in this backroom drama? Ramming this lottery change down the throats of Pa and NJ residents seems to be a convoluted game arranged by the Gorvenors to put certain people in control of very lucrative games. Time to probe the underlying reasons why these fella are trying so hard, eh?— oblekr
- This is a plan right from national Repubs and Grover Norquist! Gov Corbett hasn't had a plan to benefit for the citizens of PA since elected. This is part of Grovers power grab along with no taxes to fix the recession which Repubs caused, photo ID and other underhanded means to keep people from voting and big business and big donors to charter schools to take over public education and the taxes from your pockets to pay for those schools . You can be sure they have some dark reason for this lotter grab but it remains to be seen what it is? Beware!— rita rn
- How about letting them go out for BID...what a concept....fair play!— Bexter
- Christie and his back room deals. Why aren't companies bidding on this opportunity? Are we still in Amerca? He used Barack to give the appearance of being a god ol' boy. Jerk.— Bexter
