How Maryland's Lottery battle ended up in court

The lottery business is competitive. With billions at stake, companies competing for state contracts operate in a high-stakes arena where the margin between winning and losing can come down to paperwork, politics, and price.

The numbers tell the story. In 2025 alone, New York led all states with more than $10 billion in lottery sales, followed by Florida and California with approximately $9 billion, and Texas at nearly $8 billion. Winning a state lottery contract is enormously lucrative.

The Maryland dispute

In Maryland, Scientific Games (SGI) and Intralot are locked in a fight over who will manage the state's lottery systems for the next decade.

Intralot won the contract when its $260 million bid came in $110 million less than Scientific Games'. It was then disqualified because two minority business enterprise (MBE) vendors were allegedly not certified at bid submission. However, both were apparently cleared before the award was made.

Scientific Games appeared set to reclaim it. But the lottery commission declined to award the contract even after Intralot's disqualification. Fallout from a separate minority contractor dispute added pressure on the commission to move carefully.

In October 2025, SGI filed suit against Intralot and several Maryland Lottery & Gaming Control Agency officials. The company argued it had submitted the most advantageous proposal and that state officials failed to honor that.

The lawsuit stated:

Scientific Games is irreparably harmed by the clear violation of law taking place where a properly drafted and published RFP — to which Scientific Games submitted a proposal that is the most advantageous to the State submitted by a responsible offeror — is supplanted to allow another applicant to get a prohibited second chance.

SGI also argued that Maryland officials ignored the value of continuity, claiming the company was already exceeding the state's revenue expectations.

New ownership, new argument

Bally's Corporation acquired Intralot in the summer of 2023, with a further investment in 2025.

Since the acquisition, Bally's has injected capital, rebuilt leadership, and repositioned Intralot as a serious competitor. The company now operates lottery systems in Illinois, Georgia, Arkansas, Ohio, New Hampshire, Montana, and Washington, D.C., and also has contracts across 23 countries.

One concrete advantage: Bally's Intralot holds MBE certification and is a member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council. It is the only major lottery system provider with that designation. That status directly addresses the MBE compliance issues that triggered Intralot's original disqualification in Maryland.

However, the Maryland dispute remains unresolved. A judge may yet have the final word.