The North Carolina Education Lottery announced on Wednesday that it has chosen the two vendors that are to provide the state’s lottery with the necessary equipment and software and pointed out that its choice would likely result in millions of dollars being saved each year.
The selection panel opted for the lottery products offered by internationally recognized suppliers International Game Technology and Scientific Games. Under its agreement with the state lottery regulator, IGT would provide its software and security systems as well as ticket-generating computer terminals until 2027. As for Scientific Games, it would print and distribute instant tickets across North Carolina until 2025. Both contracts may be further extended.
The North Carolina Education Lottery explained that it has chosen those particular companies after top lottery officials and staff members reviewed carefully all bidders for almost two years.
Both IGT and Scientific Games are no strangers to the state lottery market. IGT and its predecessor GTECH, to be more precise, has held the two contracts since 2006. Scientific Games later on became an IGT subcontractor after it purchased the former one.
Certain legal agreements need to be reached before both contracts are awarded. They are expected to take effect as of April 2017. As mentioned above, the two agreements are likely to result in millions of dollars being saved each year. The state lottery would have to annually pay the amount of $26.6 million on both contracts, down 23% as compared to what it pays on the current ones.
Commenting on their decision, Alice Garland, Executive Director of the North Carolina Education Lottery, said that they have picked the best possible proposals and that they are particularly excited about the savings the two agreements would bring.
Ms. Garland further noted that state lottery players would not see any significant differences in the way the games would be operated. She actually explained that upgraded terminals at convenience stores and different other lottery retailers across the state would print tickets more quickly.
Lottery sales in 2015 generated a little less than $2 billion in 2015. Of those, the amount of $522 million was contributed to various education initiatives across North Carolina.
Apart from IGT and Scientific Games, Greek lottery supplier INTRALOT had also applied for the larger gaming system contract.
