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Three D.C. Council members have declared their intent to re-examine the $38 million D.C. Lottery contract to launch online poker in the District. Their announcement comes after the Washington Times found that a July 2010 request by two former D.C. Cabinet officials to Inspector General Charles J. Willoughby to investigate the contract was met with inaction.

Much of the consternation stems from the lack of public vetting of the bidding process by Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi. “If the inspector general didn’t do his job, then it’s a problem,” said Council member and chairman of the Committee on Finance and Revenue Jack Evans, Ward 2, to the Washington Times. Council member and fellow committee member Muriel Bowser has also raised concerns.” It was not responsible to pass it in a supplemental budget bill without public conversation. It definitely was a sleight of hand,” said Bowser.

Council member Michael A. Brown, at-large, now has a steeper climb to move online gambling in the District forward. Spill over angst still exists from his original passing of the provision in April, slipped into a budget bill, some say, surreptitiously and unethically. Matters aren’t helped now that Brown’s proposed public town halls on online gambling, in partial response to the outcry, have been postponed to “reach the largest number of D.C. residents.”