Pennsylvania exploring private management for its lottery
The Pennsylvania lottery is the latest target in the Corbett administration’s ongoing privatization campaign.
Something like an invitation has gone out from the state. The Corbett administration is asking private companies to pitch themselves as the best possible managers of lotto operations.
“We will not sell the lottery. We’re simply considering private management to make it more efficient and more manageable,” said Revenue Secretary Dan Meuser, whose agency oversees the Pennsylvania Lottery.
He says the goal here is to up the lottery’s profits.
David Fillman is director of the AFSCME union, which is representing most of the lottery’s 233 employees. He says he certainly hopes that is the case. “This is a profitable agency that has proceeds go to senior programs, prescription programs for senior citizens.”
The Corbett administration says the lottery needs to be more profitable, given the state’s rising elderly population.
About a third of the lottery’s three-point-two billion dollar profit last year went to programs for elderly Pennsylvanians.
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