Scientific Games’ lottery playbook succeeded, then spread
The growth of the lottery business nationwide was inspired in large part by the lobbying innovations of a single multinational gambling company, Scientific Games Holdings LP. A 1986 memo from Scientific Games co-founder and then-Chairman John R. Koza described a “draft version of our new model state lottery law which we distribute widely each year to state legislators and government officials in non-lottery states.” “We are seriously considering the possibility of supporting an initiative petition effort in Oklahoma and|or Arkansas to establish a state-operated lottery there in the November 1986 elections,” Koza wrote in a letter to Gaming Business Magazine. Historian Jonathan D. Cohen found that Scientific Games’ political activities were key to the creation of state lotteries, primarily in the early 1980s, via ballot initiatives in Arizona, Washington, D.C., Colorado, Oregon, and finally the “bonanza” in California. The California lottery “was entirely the product of Scientific Games,” said I.
Scientific Games’ lottery playbook succeeded, then spread
The growth of the lottery business nationwide was inspired in large part by the lobbying innovations of a single multinational gambling company, Scientific Games Holdings LP. A 1986 memo from Scientific Games co-founder and then-Chairman John R. Koza described a “draft version of our new model state lottery law which we distribute widely each year to state legislators and government officials in non-lottery states.” “We are seriously considering the possibility of supporting an initiative petition effort in Oklahoma and|or Arkansas to establish a state-operated lottery there in the November 1986 elections,” Koza wrote in a letter to Gaming Business Magazine. Historian Jonathan D. Cohen found that Scientific Games’ political activities were key to the creation of state lotteries, primarily in the early 1980s, via ballot initiatives in Arizona, Washington, D.C., Colorado, Oregon, and finally the “bonanza” in California. The California lottery “was entirely the product of Scientific Games,” said I.