WASHINGTON (Map, News) - A Caribbean casino company with ties to two of Washington’s high-profile businessmen is vying for control of the city’s lucrative lottery contract, The Examiner has learned.

The company, which calls itself Caribbean Gaming, has already started lobbying city officials, sources told The Examiner. Robert Johnson, billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television, and Bob Washington, former president of Washington National Bank, have a large stake in the firm, sources said.

Representing the group is David W. Wilmot, a prominent area lawyer and loyalist of former Mayor Marion Barry, sources said.

Wilmot didn’t respond to requests for comment.

But sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said the group has placed calls to the city finance office as well as key D.C. Council members, including Chairman Vincent Gray.

Gray didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The group began making calls shortly after D.C. Council members led by Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, blasted a finance office proposal to award the city’s $120 million lottery contract to a partnership between a Greek conglomerate and a startup company with close ties to Mayor Adrian Fenty, sources said.

The council voted to table the proposed contract Tuesday and it now hangs in limbo.

The city has used a lottery partnership led by Leonard Manning, a businessman with entrenched relationships with D.C.’s political leaders. But Manning’s company has fallen out of favor after a series of glitches, including a 2006 incident in which hackers printed nearly $80,000 in phony lottery tickets.

The company that would replace Manning’s, however, has been weighed down by allegations it was tied to Fenty’s fraternity brother.

Johnson, on the other hand, is already a gambling magnate. After selling BET for $3 billion, he started a holding company called the RLJ Cos.

RLJ owns an online lottery company that runs six contracts in the Caribbean, including the U.S. Virgin Islands. Last year, he signed a three-year deal with the government of Barbados to install and manage 2,500 video lottery machines.

His attempts to get into the gambling act in the U.S. mainland have not been as fruitful. In 2004, he lobbied to win a lottery contract in Pennsylvania.

bmyers@dcexaminer.com