Essay: How and Why the USVI Lottery Lacks Effectiveness and Non Corruption

12/12/18
How and Why the USVI Lottery Lacks Effectiveness and Non Corruption
The V.I. lottery system has lacked efficiency and has lacked proper leadership since the start “eighty three years ago”. Also we the people have been affected by down right corruption.
The Virgin Islands Lottery’s bottom line is being affected by illegal gaming. The most troublesome being Puerto Rico’s lottery tickets sold by dealers in the territory.
It’s so easy to find Puerto Rican tickets, The blackmarket sellers are not even hiding them anymore because they believe that the Virgin Islands lottery really isn’t going to do anything about it. In terms as enforcement. the enforcement officers have a challenge ahead of them to make sure that those black market dealers who are dealing the non sanctioned tickets. Although Virgin Islands lottery fully thought most police officer don’t even understand that it’s illegal to sell Puerto Rican tickets. So in my mind perhaps a memo needs to come out from the executive director letting them know that you guys are going to be clamping down.” V.I. Government told senators that sit on the Committee of Finance that it intends to take action. They have recently filled four new enforcement positions.
That would be according to the VI Lottery Director Juan Figueroa, Sr., when he gave his testimony at the. Ottley Legislative Hall. He told the board holding senators, that the new enforcement officers will help in stoppage of the illegal ticket sales. He said. “While the entity is set to break even for fiscal year in 2015, there was a notable slowdown in sales for fiscal year 2014,” “ We attribute that to the economy and illegal games in the Virgin Islands,” He also made known that if it wasn’t for Southland Gaming and Caribbean Lotto revenues, VI Lottery would have seen a loss.
The sale of Puerto Rican lottery tickets or any other non sanctioned by the VI.  Government is illegal in the USVI territories, according to the VI law.
The reasonable solution could just be. If  we’re not gonna be planning on to do something, let’s just tax them and make it legal. For the Puerto Rican tickets to be sold by these vendors. Being that there is an tremendous amount of  money being made  and these games are being played everyday.
Because the one thing that you want to do is drive sales. And as much as the Puerto Rican lottery is illegal in the Virgin Islands, you would think it’s legal; because you can get it about anywhere and sometimes you get it from the same dealers selling VI lottery tickets. And you would think that it would be legal, and that’s having an effect on the V.I. sales.I have noticed that
Other action being taken to help raise the participation in the lottery includes the upping of the entity’s advertising budget by $50,000 for fiscal year 2016. Bringing the total to $325,000. Being that the lottery is being affected by the blackmarket sales throughout the territory and they have quoted saying that there were almost unprofitable I found it hard to believe that VI Lottery was also able to meet all of its quarterly mandated contributions, including the following:
$1.5 million the Education Initiative Fund.
$1 milion to the Retirees’ Bonus Program.
$1.5 million for the Pharmaceutical Assistance Program.
$250,000 to the Horse Race Commission and the Horse Owners Association, the Department of Agriculture and Islands Horse Welfare Operators.
I now want to talk about the corruption of the V.I. lottery.
“This a direct source of the lottery. The anonymous letter alleges a number of wrongdoings and wasteful spending. Titled “Director Juan Figueroa Sr. Must Go”, it claims that morale at the VI Lottery has sank to its lowest since Mr. Figueroa took office. “Ask just about any employee of Lottery and you will see,” it reads.
“The first thing he did when he took over was got himself a badge and gun from the department and began walking around parading like a public safety officer. Then he informs everybody in his first department meeting that if anybody opens their mouth to the senators or the governor about anything that will be going on in lottery, he will make sure [to] fire them right away,” the letter alleged.
The letter accuses Mr. Figueroa of promoting “his people” without making the job posting to everyone else. Among the promoted without proper protocol, the letter claims, the oddly promoted individuals were Verita Carmichael and Luis Ozorio. The anonymous letter also highlighted Ms. Carmichael’s past, which includes a 27-count indictment of obtaining money under false pretenses in 2002. In my mind this is not a person who should be running a major government money maker. She also states Director Figueroa , always gets what she wants when she wants it,” the letter alleged. It says Ms. Carmichael was provided with two vehicles, one for each district of the Virgin Islands , and that no one is allowed to drive; that she also spends between 3-4 days weekly in St. Thomas, for which she gets paid $75 per diem per day; and that she was successful in making Mr. Figueroa change the hotel she stayed at in St. Thomas from the Windward Passage Hotel, which the anonymous letter calls Holiday Inn, to the Marriott, because she said that the “Holiday Inn wasn’t good enough,” the letter claims. It then goes on to claim that It goes on to claim that Mr. Ozorio hired one of his friends as an officer on St. Croix about a year and a half ago, which made this employee, the newest at the time. “Well, now he is a supervisor for a St. Thomas position over the St. Thomas officers that have been doing this job longer than him,” the letter reads. “So now this is another St. Croix employee who will be flying over to St. Thomas weekly to do the St. Thomas work and collect the $75 per day per diem.