Members of the Washington DC City Council have asked for an investigation of a proposed a five-year, $215 million contract for Intralot to run online sports betting for the city.
The Council had approved awarding the contract to Intralot without going through normal bidding procedures to speed having sports betting go live in the district. However, questions have risen over the half dozen sub-contractors being proposed to help Intralot with several reportedly having connections to DC political campaigns.
That has led several council members to call for an inspector general’s investigation of the contract and a halt to moving forward with sports betting until the issue is resolved.
“It does not look good to me and it frustrates me,” Councilman David Grosso told the local FOX TV affiliate. “My staff and I are working on a way to slow this down and hopefully file a disapproval resolution to try to get a hearing so we can try to air this out with the public.”
Among the subcontractors are law firms that lobbied the council to pass sports gambling and public relations companies that worked campaigns for Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of the council.
Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray told FOX 5 further investigation was needed to make sure the contract is being awarded fairly.
“If there are questions raised, they should look at going to the auditor of the council, it should go to the inspector general and have those questions further investigated,” Gray said.
The contract has also drawn critics from the gambling industry saying that awarding a single contract without competitive bidding will undermine the district’s sports betting market.
The council has until July 25 to approve the contract.
