I read an investigative report written by Joe Mahr, Matthew Walberg, and Angie Leventis Lourgos of the Chicago Tribune. The article is about the Illinois Lottery and the lack of oversight the Illinois government used in regards to the program.

The article explains how a private company that was hired by the Illinois Lottery to manage the program accumulated extra money by ending scratch ticket games before all of the tickets were sold, including the tickets with large grand prizes.

The authors used records and databases, interviewed lottery experts, and looked at communications between the company the Illinois lottery to find their information.

Before 2010, there were no states in the country that used a private company to manage the lottery. However, that changed when the Quinn administration hired Northstar Lottery Group and officially privatized the program.

The authors found that the Illinois government did not use enough oversight to watch over the company in order to ensure the Illinois Lottery was being run fairly. The only time Northstar’s game designs were ever audited was in 2010.

The report found that many of the instant games ended before half of the total tickets printed were ever sold. This data included one instant game where only 15% of tickets were sold before it was pulled.

According to the authors, there was not an explanation given for why these games ended before grand-prizes could be won. The Illinois government did not intervene in the pulling of any instant games.

The reason for Northstar’s decision to end games early is most likely due to the fact that they were not meeting their enthusiastic goals outlined in their bid to manage the Illinois Lottery.

As of December 30, 2016, when the report was written, the Rauner administration was looking for a company to replace Northstar Lottery Group.