Editorial: High stakes bidding at the lottery

Hiring someone for a job is not as simple as putting a “help wanted” sign in the front window.

Especially not when the job is about handling the billions running in and out of the Pennsylvania lottery system.

But does it really have to be as complicated as it has become?

PennLive found in October that the state has spent $1.3 million to evaluate bids from two companies that would win the right to a lucrative 10-year contract. The big payday is a Mega Millions-sized jackpot estimated in the neighborhood of $1 billion to run the terminal games and design those instant scratchers hawked by the second most famous groundhog.

The cost for Pennsylvania is more than a $2 ticket and it’s no quick pick. The process has dragged on like a particularly tedious and expensive game of Monopoly.

So why is it so pricey and time-consuming to look at two proposals and pick one?

Good question.

On the one hand, thoroughness is to be applauded. The lottery takes in $4.5 billion a year and pumps out $2.9 billion in prizes. It’s not just a cash cow. It’s a whole herd. It’s good to know that the company tending it isn’t being selected randomly like a Powerball number.

But $1.3 million? What’s driving that kind of cost?

It’s a question Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale is going to explore as part of his audit of the Pennsylvania Lottery.

“We certainly have the right to make sure that all appropriate procedures were followed during this procurement and to ask why that dollar figure is (so high),” DePasquale said. “There may be a good answer for it, but we’ll certainly be asking that.”

It isn’t all the audit will cover. DePasquale said in announcing it Wednesday that there will be a special emphasis on protections against gaming the gaming system — looking at frequent winners and preventing fraud.

But let’s hope that the bid issue doesn’t become a side bet. There are billions of reasons it shouldn’t.