The Washington, D.C. Council and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser recently authorized city officials to suspend procurement rules and award a $215 million sole-source contract to the Greek gaming company Intralot, which already manages the district’s lottery. Council members and Bowser said the move was necessary to quickly launch a mobile sports betting app to maximize tax revenue.
Critics said that the city should have awarded the sports betting contract through competitive bidding, noting multiple bids offer the best deal for taxpayers and limits cronyism in contracting. They also questioned Intralot’s financial standing after credit-rating agencies downgraded the company’s ratings.
Seven companies would serve as subcontractors, sharing more than one-third of the multimillion dollar contract, including Emmanuel Bailey, already a subcontractor on D.C. lottery contract, as well as Goldblatt, Martin and Pozen, the law firm Bailey hired to lobby the council for sports gambling legislation. Another proposed contractor, District Services Management, is managed by officials who ran Life Deeds, which recently lost a contract to operate a homeless shelter due to allegations of falsified personnel records.
Allieu Kamara, the president of Life Deeds who is also listed as a contact for District Services Management, blamed a vendor for the falsified records and previously said he planned to appeal the agency’s decision. He did not return requests for comment Tuesday on his involvement in the Intralot contract.
Another sports gambling subcontractor is public relations specialist Everett Hamilton, who managed communications for Bowser’s first mayoral run and for D.C. Council member Brandon T. Todd in 2016. Another subcontractor would be former D.C. board of education representative Mark Jones, who served as a deputy director of the D.C. Lottery in the late 1990s. Jones was listed as a subcontractor for Intralot when it was awarded the lottery contract.
The District’s sports gambling legislation gives the city exclusive rights to manage mobile sports betting; it allows sportsbooks at arenas and betting machines similar to lottery terminals at retailers.
The sports betting contract must be approved by the council by July 25. Then, according to lottery officials, it will take six months to launch the mobile sports betting app. However, sports wagers at private establishments could begin in early September.
