TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

The move comes as Indian casinos proliferate, and as voters are set to consider in November an initiative that would allow slot machines at horse race tracks and card rooms as well.

The lottery has been hard hit by the competition for gambling dollars, and is proposing its own overhaul of lotto and scratch-off games to keep up.

Existing games would be promoted with themes like roulette, dice, texas holdem, baccarat, blackjack, Lucky 7s, draw poker and slot machines under an amendment added Friday to the lottery's reorganization legislation.

The legislation already proposed to increase prize money and cut schools' share of the profits. Backers say schools would eventually benefit as more money flows to the struggling lottery.

The reorganization "could be worth literally hundreds of millions of dollars more to education," said Bob Vincent, a spokesman for East Coast-based GTECH. The company is a major lottery supplier and supporter of the bill.

Backers say they do not have to seek voters' permission to skirt the prohibition in the original initiative, because of a clause in that measure that lets legislators make changes if they in keeping with the goal of supporting schools, colleges and universities.

"The lottery act opened the gaming door in this state in the first place, and this would further expand gambling," Cheryl Schmit, of Stand Up For California, told the Oakland Tribune. "You're adding items on a menu. The more gambling there is, the greater opportunity there is for problems of compulsive gamblers to increase in California."

Backers of the original initiative specifically ruled out Las Vegas-style themes because they feared voters would otherwise reject the lottery.

Currently, at least 34 percent of lottery money must go to education, half must be paid out as prize money, and 16 percent goes for administration.

Pay-outs would increase to 62 percent and schools' share drop to 25 percent, with 13 percent for administration, under the legislation by Assemblyman George Plescia, R-San Diego.

The legislation includes a guarantee that education funding could not fall below the $1 billion allocated in recent years, without making up the difference from administrative spending.

The lottery accounts for less than 2 percent of the education budget, but paid for nearly 12,000 teachers and nearly 3 million textbooks last year.