A new era is set to begin for the Oregon Lottery in September 2019 with the official launch of sports betting. The state’s lottery officials have denied allegations that a major contractor which was hired last week is involved in providing any gambling services in black markets worldwide.
Last week, the director of the Oregon Lottery, Barry Pack, gave the green light to sports betting operations in the state by signing a controversial contract with the gaming technology operator SBTech Malta Ltd. Mr. Pack signed the contract regardless of the fact that a rival bidder claimed that the gaming tech firm operates in countries where gambling is not allowed.
For the time being, the contract is being strictly controlled by Oregon Lottery officials. They released the contract to a local media but only after SBTech had the chance to redact it, as a result of which the firm blanked out most of the information included. Apart from that, lottery officials also refused to release the firm’s background check made by the Oregon State Police and only released a summary of the detective’s findings.
It also became clear that the assistant director of security at the Oregon Lottery, Darin Goodwiler, made a recommendation to lottery officials to ink the contract with SBTech Malta.
In an unexpected move, Senator Chuck Riley almost killed the entire sports betting plan by offering to ban the local lottery from getting involved in mobile sports betting. Still, Oregon Lottery officials are willing to roll out a mobile sports betting application several months before the new type of gambling becomes available into the brick-and-mortar establishments across the state.
Newly-Inked SBTech Contract Caused Controversy in the State
It turned out that almost everyone wants a chunk of the fresh revenue after the US Supreme Court officially lifted the sports betting ban imposed by the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. So far, the addition of sports betting has proven a great decision in most of the states who have already made it legal.
According to preliminary projections, Oregon could expect total sports betting revenue of $330 million over the first year, and about $680 million by the third year of the new form of gambling’s operation. State’s officials have shared that they expect sports betting to be launched in Oregon by the beginning of the NFL regular season at the beginning of September 2019.
The contract signed by the Oregon Lottery’s director has caused some controversy, as local retailers are believed to be concerned about mobile gambling that could turn out devastating for them.
SBTech Malta is one of the relatively new players to the US, as most of its operations are currently situated in Europe and Asia. Now, the contract with the Oregon Lottery has been inked with a subsidiary of the company. In fact, it was on March 20th when the state’s Lottery hinted that it intended to choose SBTech as a partner for the mobile sports betting application, even though there were six weeks left to the completion of the due diligence. Scientific Gaming, which was the second-place bidder for the contract, filed a formal protest with the allegations that SBTech is operating in the black markets of countries where gambling is currently illegal, so it must have been disqualified.
