Prior to that, with a degree in hotel and restaurant management from Purdue University, he owned and operated a few Vermont businesses, including an inn with his wife, and a Vermont retail shop. Smith got his start in the state lottery industry by serving as executive director of the Vermont Lottery Commission from 2012 to 2016 - a much smaller operation. When asked why he chose to transition to Connecticut, Smith’s answer was lean: “The search for a director in Connecticut came to me,” he said, though he later applauded the state’s quasi-public model, which reports to the legislature while generating profit from its own services. He was not keen on the private management model because it makes the day-to-day work more challenging. The state’s lottery is one of only three in the country to use a private company to manage its day-to-day operations, and Smith was charged with transitioning to the corporation’s second ever private manager. Smith stepped into that role in 2016, at a time when Illinois Lottery’s private management company had recently been terminated. Prior to joining the Connecticut Lottery, he served as the Director of the Illinois Lottery - a state agency with a $2.8 billion budget and more than 7,500 retail outlets statewide. Smith, however, is not a stranger to business complications. And part of that is going to fall in my lap, but it’s not going to happen this week.” “Wrapping the whole thing up and having the audit reports written about it… making sure the lottery and the Department of Consumer Protection will all say the matter is finalized…. “These matters need to be resolved,” he said. Currently, he is working with the corporation’s employees to pay prizes, get claims validated, and evaluate the practice and rule-writing “so there is never a chance for this to repeat itself.” “There were a number of people involved in that drawing… we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said. He is starting by tying together the loose ends of the New Years Day Super Draw episode, which he describes as the “specific human error” of five people at the same point in time. Though Smith joins the corporation in what he hopes will be a new, clean era for the lottery, he will have to grapple with some of the aftermath of the corporation’s past problems. Things appear to be fair and a good engagement for the players,” he said. That’s very good, and the public continues to buy the products. “You think of the problems….and yet, we set another record.

Ct lotto superdraw