DC council members want investigation before District moves forward with sports gambling app

WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - Members of the DC Council are calling on an inspector general's investigation before the District moves forward on a plan to create a sports gambling app.

DC officials proposed a five-year, $215 million contract for a company called Intralot to run online sports betting for the city, but questions are rising over the half dozen sub-contractors being proposed. Several of the sub-contractors have connections to DC political campaigns.

Councilmember David Grosso told FOX 5 he doesn't like that and wants to hit the brakes on the deal.

"It does not look good to me and it frustrates me," Grosso said. "My staff and I are working on a way to slow this down and hopefully file a disapproval resolution to try to get a hearing so we can try to air this out with the public."

Who are the sub-contractors? Some of them are law firms that lobbied the council to pass sports gambling or public relations companies that worked campaigns for Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of the council.

But others, like District Services Management, raise eyebrows even higher due to the fact that their executive is connected to another company that lost a contract managing a homeless shelter over falsified records.

Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray told FOX 5 further investigation was needed to make sure the contract is being awarded fairly.

"If there are questions raised they should look at going to the auditor of the council, it should go to the inspector general and have those questions further investigated," Gray said.

FOX 5 reached out to Bowser's office who said the mayor is in Boston. Councilmember Jack Evans, who is the finance chairman, referred FOX 5 to the chief financial officer, who never returned our requests.

The council has until July 25 to approve the contract. If they do, the sports betting app could be up by the end of the year.