CWA: Lottery Privatization a Bad Bet for New Jersey

In an op-ed in Bergen County, N.J.'s newspaper The Record this week, CWA Representative Seth Hahn points out the damage that Gov. Chris Christie's plan to privatize the state lottery system will cause to workers, small business and communities. CWA represents more than 40,000 state workers in New Jersey, as well as 15,000 county and municipal workers and thousands more in telecommunications and direct care.

The move will harm New Jersey's small-business owners, taxpayers and fiscal health. Christie's scheme could cost our state thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars.

Last year, the Christie administration conducted a study about how to make New Jersey's award-winning lottery even better. It showed that in 2010 our lottery had the highest net income margin in the entire country — making it one of the nation's most efficient. From 2000-2010, sales grew 42 percent.

In fact, growth in online, instant and total sales all far exceeded the national average. Yet, incredulously, looking at all this solid information, Christie made the decision that sales and marketing functions should be turned over to a private company. Even worse, despite the 42 percent growth in sales in the last decade, this firm will get a cut of profits if they increase sales a mere 9 percent over the next 15 years.

This changeover will hurt small-business owners from Fort Lee to Paramus. It will tilt the playing field away from Main Street and towards big boxes, large supermarkets and chain stores at the expense of people like the very middle-class grocery owner who won the recent Powerball.

Local vendors could lose a third of lottery sales in the first year alone. As small businesses throughout the state struggle to survive a sluggish economy and the fiscal effects of Superstorm Sandy, they'll lose customers. They'll also drop secondary sales that accompany lottery tickets, such as newspapers, milk and coffee.

Read the full op-ed here.