A contract agreement between the Florida Lottery and IGT Global Solutions Corporation is a point of contention to be noted in a lawsuit currently being drafted by the Florida Speaker of the House, Richard Corcoran. The House will be filing a lawsuit against the state lottery due to a contract promising more money in the future from the lottery to IGT than has been budgeted.
Based on information in the lawsuit, Legislature had budgeted just over $26 million to be spent on terminal machines along with $5 million to be spent on instant-ticket vending machines. Full service vending machines had $2.9 million allocated for spending. The drafting of the lawsuit was first mentioned by Politico Florida, with the suit stating that the contract made between the gaming vendor IGT and the Florida Lottery has made the lottery obligated to spend more money in the future on vending machines.
According to the House, the Lottery does not have the authority to sign a contract requiring Legislature to pay more money for gaming. The council for the Speaker of the House stated that the Secretary of the Florida Lottery signed a multi-year contract with IGT Global Solutions Corporation that requires the Florida Lottery to spend more money in the future than what has been appropriated in the budget categories.
With the signing of the contract, the legislative budget for the Fiscal Year 2017 to 2018 will require an aggregate increase in the ticket machine budget categories and the categories will have to be realigned in order to accommodate the new increase via the contract. According to the council, this is impermissible.
If Corcoran is successful with the lawsuit, the contract between the Florida Lottery and IGT will be thrown out and the Lottery will have to make a bid again.