Gtech

The ease with which GTECH Corp. secured a no-bid, $49 million contract to bring keno to Maryland shows why major firms fought so fiercely three years ago to supply computers and marketing expertise to the State Lottery Agency.The winner of the first contract, they knew, would be in a strong position to claim profitable, add-on lottery games on the grounds of familiarity with the state's system.Now, that contract is the focus of a federal probe. On Saturday, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, Richard D. Bennett, announced he would refer the matter immediately to a federal grand jury for investigation.

ANNAPOLIS -- After a fierce and highly political bidding war between national computer giants, a Rhode Island firm apparently has won preliminary approval to supply new computers for Maryland's lottery -- underbidding the current contract holder by a surprising $20 million.GTECH of Providence, R.I., outdueled Control Data Corp. of Minneapolis, which has held the contract for the last nine years. GTECH's bid of $60.06 million was far below the $81.45 million quoted by Control Data.The fight for Maryland's business was the latest skirmish in a high-cost, state-by-state contest for supremacy in the lottery computer business.

To a generation of Maryland horseplayers, Guy Snowden is known as the owner of some fast racehorses, usually precocious 2-year-olds, trained locally by John Salzman.For more than a decade, Snowden has been a horse owner, running about 100 thoroughbreds, principally at the Maryland tracks. Departing Smoke. Departing Cloud. Ducere. They have all been runners carrying Snowden's silks in races ranging from prestigious stakes events to claimers."You're Guy B. Snowden?" a patron in a Washington bar once asked him, referring to the way Snowden's name is printed on Laurel Race Course programs.

GTECH Corp. is protesting its apparent loss of Maryland's lucrative lottery contract to a competitor that offered to do the job for half the price.In a letter to the state Tuesday, GTECH charged that a rival firm, Automated Wagering International, failed to meet various requirements set by lottery officials.Among its complaints, GTECH alleges that AWI's lottery tickets do not have enough colors on them and that its proposed computer plant in Baltimore lacks the required number of parking spaces.

Like all outsiders, super lobbyist Bruce Bereano couldn't sit in on meetings where Maryland lottery officials and a few of the governor's lieutenants discussed the politically sensitive process of putting the state's numbers games out for bid.But in the lobbying business, what you know is almost as important as who you know. And Bereano, the first Annapolis arm-twister to earn a million bucks in a year, was typically hungry for information to help his client, lottery giant GTECH Corp.GTECH needed an edge in Maryland.

In a stunning replay of a politically controversial bidding war, a Georgia company yesterday offered to run the Maryland lottery for less than half of what the state is paying now.The company, Automated Wagering International (AWI), said it could supply and maintain the lottery's computers for about $40 million over five years -- almost $50 million less than the only other bidder, incumbent GTECH Corp. of Rhode Island.In 1991, GTECH won the Maryland contract by significantly underbidding Control Data Corp, the company that later became AWI. That award was so controversial it led to a federal investigation and ultimately, the conviction of GTECH's former lobbyist, Bruce C. Bereano, on unrelated mail fraud charges.

The company that will be taking over Maryland's $1 billion-a-year lottery business is having big troubles in Arizona, where persistent glitches have marred its first few months of running that state's lottery.The problems have worried the treasurer of Kentucky, where a lottery contract with the company is pending, and prompted speculation about what is in store for Maryland.The contractor, Automated Wagering International Inc., is facing hefty fines over computer problems that have kept the Arizona lottery from collecting more than $14 million in instant ticket receipts from stores.

ANNAPOLIS -- A firm that includes William L. "Little Willie" Adams, a political ally of Gov. William Donald Schaefer, has been disqualified as a minority subcontractor in the state's new lottery computer contract by state officials who say the firm had neither the equipment nor the experience to do $1.2 million a year in lottery printing.WBS Inc., of which Mr. Adams is treasurer, was one of the minority-owned firms that GTECH Corp., of Rhode Island, included in its bid to win the state's $64 million contract for lottery master computers and sales terminals.

The losing bidder in a prolonged battle to win the state's lucrative lottery contract has asked the Maryland State Lottery Agency to open an investigation into how the contract process was handled.Citing an article published July 24 in The Evening Sun about how lobbyists influenced the lottery contract process, Marcel Helou, sales vice president for Control Data Corp., asked state lottery officials to determine if "inside information" from the agency was leaked to lobbyists for GTECH Corp.

WEST GREENWICH, R.I. -- At GTECH, the world's leading maker of computerized lottery machines, winning numbers hit almost every day.Operating profits are up by $83.2 million this year -- 90 percent beyond the previous year. In January, the company had 46 national, state and provincial lottery contracts. Today, 51 governments buy lottery computers from GTECH.Leaving little to chance, the company has moved to the top of the lottery industry in a nanosecond of commercial time. Sixty-four percent of lottery terminals anywhere on the globe were made by this company, which was started in the mid-1980s.