AG Schwalb secures $6.5 million from lottery and sports betting contractor and subcontractor for defrauding the District
Published Date: Jan 14, 2025
- Categories
- Action Type Settlement
AG Schwalb announced that Intralot, Inc. (Intralot) and its small business subcontractor, Veterans Services Corporation (VSC), will pay the District a combined $6.5 million for deceiving city officials to win and then obtain payments under the District’s multimillion dollar, multiyear lottery and sports betting contract. An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) revealed that, in 2019, Intralot and VSC conspired to secure the DC Council’s approval of the lucrative contract on a sole-source basis, without requiring a competitive bidding process, by promising that VSC would perform 51% of the work—all with its own resources—and receive an equivalent percentage of the revenue, with other small businesses receiving a minor additional share. That promise was false: Intralot and VSC secretly agreed that, in exchange for return payments from VSC to Intralot, an Intralot subsidiary—not VSC—would provide most of the resources for the sole-source contract. After securing the contract, Intralot and VSC teamed up under this covert agreement to obtain millions of dollars from the District under false pretenses, misrepresenting that VSC performed work that Intralot’s subsidiary actually did and that VSC received a majority of the compensation despite funneling much of it back to Intralot. “This is a warning to any company that tries to manipulate and exploit District contracting laws, especially laws intended to build the capacity of the local businesses vital to our economy […]" – AG Schwalb