ILL-inois: Lottery has $200 million in bookkeeping errors

Man oh man, Illinois can't even get the lottery to work right. According to a state auditor's report, the Illinois Lottery has "material weaknesses" within its internal fiscal controls that caused $200 million in reporting mistakes.

More from Crain's Chicago Business:

The combination of "errors, inaccuracies and weaknesses . . . (created) a reasonable possibility of a material misstatement of the (lottery's) financial statements will not be prevented," the audit summary states. And those problems extended not only to personnel and reporting forms but to computer systems that generate reports, Mr. Holland said.

Lottery Director Michael Jones noted that the audit covered the year ended June 30, 2012, during which the lottery separated from the Illinois Department of Revenue. Financial glitches are "not uncommon" during such transitions, and have been remedied, he said.

Mr. Jones also blamed the problem on the lottery's private operator, Northstar Lottery Group LLC, which has been involved in a yearlong dispute with Mr. Jones about its compensation and related matters. "Most of the data" the lottery relied on came from Northstar, he said.

Ah, but there is always another side to the story.

From Crain's again:

A spokeswoman for Northstar rejected that. "The audit dealt with how the lottery kept its own financial records — not the information we gave them," the spokeswoman said.