Change of plans for Washington DC online casino

According to a report from The Washington Times newspaper, DC Lottery has been working on an implementation process for the planned online casino ever since the 13-member City Council for the District of Columbia passed a budget amendment a year ago that included language legalising iGaming for those in the municipality.

DC Lottery had initially planned to use DC-Net, which is a high-speed fibre-optic network that carries data, voice, video and wireless telecommunications for government and public safety purposes, as a way to keep play legal and within city borders and ensure a secure connection for games.

However, Buddy Roogow, Director for DC Lottery, revealed that his office had now opted to utilise other forms of technology but declined to elaborate further. He stated that his organisation was ‘very confident’ in its systems and added that he didn’t want to ‘give away everything we’re doing’. “We feel we’ve found other ways to secure the system in terms of intra-jurisdictional play,” said Roogow.

DC Lottery declared that it had no plans to change the main components of its online gambling proposal after holding a series of community events to address concerns about the programme. The operator did decide to reduce from six to four the number of games to be introduced when the iGaming programme is implemented while the excluded pair could be introduced at a later date.

The online casino for the nation’s 24th largest city is also facing a lawsuit tied to the initial awarding of the contract to DC09, which is a joint venture between Greek firm Intralot and a Maryland businessman who serves as its local partner. The city’s CFO, Natwar Gandhi, testified in a recent deposition tied to the case brought by former procurement officer Eric Payne that he had used a private account to send e-mail messages to persons involved in the awarding of the deal including Mayor Vincent Gray, who is also the former Chairman for the City Council for the District of Columbia.

Gandhi stated that he had ‘occasionally’ used his personal account to reach city officials from his home while Payne alleges that he was unfairly dismissed for raising questions about how the contract was awarded.