State auditor to focus on Pennsylvania Lottery
The State Auditor from Pennsylvania is set to audit the local lottery and focus on high-frequency winners.
US.- Pennsylvania State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale announced this week that he will audit the Pennsylvania Lottery. The official said that he will focus on studying the lottery’s protections against fraud.
DePasquale announced the audit at the state Capitol. He said: “Last fiscal year, Pennsylvania Lottery players bought US$4.5 billion in game tickets and claimed more than $2.9 billion in prizes. “Seniors, lottery players and the general public deserve to know if every dollar of those prizes was claimed in accordance with the law,” he added, according to pennlive.com.
The State Auditor said that news investigations by the news outlet piqued his interest after it focused on high-frequency wins by hundreds of lottery players in a number of states. The investigation showed that some of these results could be rooted in illegal activity.
Moreover, DePasquale said that he needs to make sure that illegal activity is not happening in Pennsylvania. He added that state lottery officials must implement safeguards to detect and stop illegal activity.
“I appreciate it when the Lottery says that they are doing everything they can (to prevent fraud),” DePasquale said, “but for seniors who count on Lottery-funded programs, and the players, I want to dig deeper and do an independent review to make sure they are doing exactly that… It could be that some people are just luckier than others, but as the Auditor General I am not paid to believe in coincidences.”
Pennsylvania Lottery partner search costs over US$1m
The Pennsylvania Lottery is considering who will be its new partner. Two companies want to get the lottery servicing contracts (which last 10 years) that would pay around US$1 billion.
However, the process has cost the state body over US$1.3 million so far. The Pennsylvania Lottery has spent such amount on consultants to help with the process.
“The lottery is a critical program in Pennsylvania,” DePasquale said. “We want to make sure the money goes to seniors. That cost itself is obviously concerning because that money could be better spent helping seniors.“
