IGT and Twin River Battle With GOP and Hassenfeld Over Lottery Contract Terms

The effort by two of Rhode Island’s largest employers — IGT and Twin River — to extend a new lottery agreement continues to draw political fire from former Hasbro CEO Alan Hassenfeld —  now a Florida resident —  as well as by members of the House Republican caucus. 

Hassenfeld has had his own interests in the gaming industry and has been a critic of the lottery contract extension.

In an exchange of charges and counter-charges, top executives from the two gaming concerns write, “This legislation has been dramatically improved, securing additional economic development benefits for Rhode Island while introducing many important protections for Rhode Island taxpayers. Importantly, it provides for a comprehensive reporting and oversight framework for the General Assembly throughout the life of the contracts.” 

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The letter to members of the General Assembly was jointly signed by Jay Gendron, Chief Operating Officer, Lottery International Game Technology and Marc Crisafuli, Executive Vice President of Twin River Worldwide Holdings.

The two companies assert the contract:

•    Requires $250 million of investment in Rhode Island economy by IGT and Twin River;

•    Guarantees 1100 TGT jobs with aggregate payroll of 250% of minimum wage;

•    Enables "Shovel-ready" 50,000 square foot expansion of Twin River Casino, improving its competitiveness for years to come and creating hundreds of local construction jobs;

•    Maximizes the performance of the third-largest revenue source while minimizing any risk of technology conversions; and

•    Provides an important boost to Providence with both IGT and Twin River Worldwide Holdings maintaining headquarters in our Capitol City through 2043.

The House Republicans write in response to IGT and Twin River, “We assume you [Twin River’s Marc Crisafuli] agree with our analysis that we will overpay IGT up to $156,000,000.00 for the CMS, as you’ve made no attempt to counter these figures. We also note that you did not respond to CCA’s admonition to not enter into a twenty-year technology contract.”

Likewise, our concerns about the diluted jobs requirement – where non-IGT employees count towards the 1100 jobs – and the anemic $6,400 penalty for each job unfilled (that the state is paying $30,000.00 per-job per-year for) were not sufficiently addressed by your letter. On to our VLT leasing analysis: Your letter claims that our VLT purchase proposal “underestimates the total expenses by over $200,000,000. That you provide absolutely zero analysis to substantiate this figure is troubling, especially given our detailed proposal you seek to counter. Such significant numbers casually thrown around further demonstrates the need for continuing committee hearings,” added the Republicans.

IGT and Twin River say the Republicans are not taking into account the full costs and underestimating the potential exposure Rhode Island will be assuming.

“Leader Filippi ignores these important conclusions and instead argues that it would be better for the State to fundamentally transform the gaming ecosystem in Rhode Island from a lottery model to a casino model by advocating for the State to purchase VLTs. Unfortunately, the financial analysis provided with this notion is incomplete and inaccurate and would materially harm Rhode Island taxpayers. The proposal for the State to buy VLTs underestimates the total expenses by well over $200 million, ignores the material risk transfer from private companies to the Rhode Island taxpayers in the future, and jeopardizes this highly successful gaming program,” according to Gendron and Crifafuli’s letter.

The games go on.

429 Too Many Requests

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