Private lottery firm gets $50 million deposit back from Pa.

As the Corbett administration mulls its next step regarding privatization of Pennsylvania’s lottery, the British company with money on the line has gotten its deposit back.

A $50 million security deposit binding Camelot Global Services to its bid on the Pennsylvania Lottery has been returned.

The move comes after the firm’s contract with the commonwealth was rejected by the State Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who called it unconstitutional.

The Department of Revenue oversees the lottery, and Secretary Dan Meuser says attorneys are still looking into changing the contract in response.

“However, you do run into bidding procedures. Changing the bid process, changing the request for proposals and so forth, certainly could open you up to new protests,” Meuser said Tuesday. “So the whole bidding process — if something like that were done — would likely have to be completely redone.”

Meuser says Camelot isn’t deserting the deal and remains hopeful the contract can be finalized.After Kane turned the contract down, Camelot’s bid was extended another week to give the administration time to decide whether to appeal in Commonwealth Court.

Meuser says the governor’s office is mulling whether to appeal the decision to reject the lottery contract, or whether a new plan to privatize the lottery is needed.

“All I can say is that I think the decision was very unfortunate,” Meuser said. “The end result, I think, is empirical that there is $3 billion less that is going to be delivered to the lottery fund over the course of the next 20 years.”

The Revenue Department had projected the lottery under the private manager would generate $3 billion to $4.5 billion more than the publicly managed lottery over 20 years.