Five Firms File Financial Returns in Lotto Game Bid

Five firms filed financial disclosure information Friday as a preliminary move toward bidding on a massive state contract to operate a computerized lotto game next year.

“It looks like we have five bidders,” lottery spokesman Bob Taylor said, just after the noon deadline.

Most of the 10 interested electronics manufacturers originally balked at making detailed financial disclosures, including the personal finances of corporate officers and stockholders in their company, parent firm and subsidiaries. The disclosures are required by the initiative adopted by voters last year that set up the state lottery.

But the five bidding corporations apparently complied with the regulations to have a chance at a contract potentially worth $200 million over four years. It will be one of the biggest state government computer contracts ever and the largest contract that will be awarded by the lottery.

San Diego Firm 1st

Taylor said International Totalizator Systems Inc. of San Diego was the first firm to bring in its disclosures, which came in 11 cardboard boxes. It was closely followed by Control Data Corp. of New York; GTECH Corp. of Rhode Island; General Instrument Corp., which is bidding from its new Sacramento office, and Scientific Games Inc. of Georgia.

The disclosure requirements are supposedly aimed at maintaining the games’ integrity, but have been criticized as limiting competition. Their application has been challenged in court and the Legislature is expected to resume its attempts to ease the rules in January.

The state Lottery Commission is expected to tentatively select a company Dec. 16 and award a bid at the outset of 1986. The numbers games, which will be offered in addition to the current “instant-winner” scratch-off ticket games, are supposed to begin in midyear.

Once the games get under way, lotto players will have clerks log their six-number bets into central computers from thousands of terminals scattered at businesses throughout the state.