An executive responsible for Washington DC\u2019s troubled sports betting rollout was paid handsomely while the program fell short of its revenue targets, leading to behind-the-scenes tensions among program participants, according to documents reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n The report adds to the woes facing sports betting in the nation\u2019s capital, where city officials gave exclusive access to a homegrown sports gambling app rather than allowing in established players such as DraftKings as other states have done. The app, GambetDC, was created by a partnership between Intralot, a Greek gaming services company, and Veterans Services Corp., a lottery subcontractor in the Washington area.<\/p>\n According to documents obtained by the online news outlet Axios<\/em><\/a>, Intralot executives bristled at the at least $1.4 million it paid annually to VSC and the poor performance of the local firm.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cVSC\u2019s principal receives a salary seven times higher than the salary of the District\u2019s Mayor and untethered to any actual work or performance,\u201d wrote the former CEO of Intralot US, Byron Boothe, in a 2022 letter to DC lottery officials quoted by Axios<\/em>. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser\u2019s salary was $220K last year, according to Axios<\/em>.<\/p>\n Intralot \u201creluctantly agreed\u201d to pay VSC and Boothe complained that \u201cVSC cannot perform anywhere close to 51%” of the work it was contracted to do “on its own,\u201d according to the correspondence reported by Axios<\/em>. Boothe did not elaborate on those claims, Axios<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n In a separate letter earlier this year to small business officials in DC, Boothe reiterated his criticism of VSC and said Intralot had to make up for VSC\u2019s shortcomings.<\/p>\n \u201cThis cannot continue,\u201d Boothe wrote in January.<\/p>\n Intralot chair Nikolaos Nikolakopoulos retracted Boothe\u2019s comments in his own letter to DC officials two weeks later, Axios<\/em> reported. Intralot announced Nikolakopoulos was replacing Boothe as CEO on Feb. 15, a week after Nikolakopoulos\u2019 sent the letter. Boothe remains at Intralot as a strategic consultant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Requests for comment to Intralot, VSC, and the DC Office of Lottery and Gaming were not immediately returned Wednesday.<\/p>\n DC legalized sports betting in 2018 and GambetDC launched in early 2021 after the City Council approved a no-bid contract for Intralot, with VSC retaining a 51% stake.<\/p>\n GambetDC has been plagued with problems from the start, including its infamous crash<\/a> during the 2022 Super Bowl.<\/p>\n The app lost $4 million<\/a> in its first full year of operation, falling well short of initial estimates that it would generate $27 million in its first year. In fiscal 2022, GambetDC generated $2.7 million<\/a> in revenues, remaining well below initial projections.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dissatisfaction with GambetDC\u2019s performance led former DC Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) to propose legislation<\/a> last year that would have ended the Intralot contract. It opened DC\u2019s sports betting market to private competitors, mirroring the approach in neighboring Virginia and Maryland.<\/p>\n The Council didn’t act on the legislation and Silverman subsequently lost her reelection race in November, but other council members have shown interest in the idea.<\/p>\n The post Tensions Flare Among DC Sports Betting Contractors — Report<\/a> appeared first on Casino.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An executive responsible for Washington DC\u2019s troubled sports betting rollout was paid handsomely while the program fell short of its …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motoai.net\/demos\/casino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-07-at-2.38.22-PM-430x287.png\")
Criticisms and Shortcomings<\/h2>\n
Problematic Origins<\/h2>\n