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Conn. Lottery Looking To Revamp Image As State Considers Online Sports Betting

John Locher
/
AP

The Connecticut Lottery said they are ready to take bets on sports and make lottery games available online and on smartphones.

Online sports betting is prohibited in the state. But Governor Ned Lamont and state lawmakers said in January that online sports betting is on the agenda in Connecticut as a potential revenue booster to help fund his $46 billion two-year budget proposal.

The pitch to win legislative authorization was made by the lottery’s president, Gregory Smith, in an attempt to help boost the state lottery’s reputation after several scandals in the past hindering them.

The quasi-public agency has been accused in several cases of fraud, and an incorrect New Year’s Day drawing in 2018 that wrongly excluded 100,000 ticket buyers had cost the state close to $1 million.

In 2019, the lottery’s vice president, Chelsea Turner, was placed on administrative leave amid questions over her role in an FBI investigation of another lottery official. She quit in 2020, and sued the agency. A Connecticut judge in January dismissed a state defamation lawsuit against lottery executives over information handed over to the FBI about lottery officials’ conduct.

Lamont’s chief of staff, Paul Mounds, said to the Connecticut Mirror that the administration recruited Rob Simmelkjaer, a former senior NBC Sports and ESPN executive, as the lottery’s board chairman last spring to help Smith fix the agency’s image and growth.