If the Corbett administration grants a management contract for the Pennsylvania Lottery to Britain-based Camelot Global Services, that company, which also operates the national lottery in the United Kingdom, stands to make a lot of money. Just how much, Keystone State residents haven’t been told, if there’s even a possibility of making a close estimate at this time.

Suffice to say that the amount has to be huge. Otherwise, Camelot Global wouldn’t waste its time delving into the Pennsylvania venture.

All that Pennsylvania residents have been told up to now is that Camelot Global is promising the state $34 billion in profits over the next 20 years — a nice sum but maybe not as much as the lottery could earn on its own if it implemented changes of the kind Camelot Global envisions.

Obviously, Camelot Global has changes in mind that it believes would enhance the lottery’s profit picture, and there’s no reason to believe that this state couldn’t do likewise if it put the right people in place to undertake the task.

Approximately $1.1 billion of the Pennsylvania Lottery’s $3.5 billion in sales during the past fiscal year was profit.

Meanwhile, on Thursday the Associated Press reported that state House Democrats are estimating that a consultant to Gov. Tom Corbett’s move to privatize the lottery stands to make tens of millions of dollars if the deal is finalized.

According to the AP, the state Department of Revenue, which currently runs the lottery, has refused to estimate the potential contract value to New York-based investment bank Greenhill & Co. until a deal is made. However, the House Democratic Appropriations Committee staff now estimates that it would be between $30 million and $50 million.

That’s a lot of money that could be better used in Pennsylvania, although the Revenue Department says the money would be paid out of the $50 million put up by Camelot to secure its bid.

Nevertheless, state residents have good cause to be concerned when big amounts of money are at stake and their top government officials aren’t being open about important details, especially about who is getting what.

Changing the lottery’s management doesn’t require legislative approval, but there’s an unpleasant odor when not enough is being disclosed — even to lawmakers elected to represent the people in the state capital.

It has been the Democrats who’ve been complaining about the lack of information about the proposed deal, but Republican lawmakers who haven’t been privy to important details should likewise be concerned. Butler County’s Republican lawmakers have been quiet about the issue.

As was reported earlier, Camelot Global’s bid expires on Dec. 31. Two other companies the governor has refused to identify have dropped out of contention for the contract.

It would not have been unreasonable for state residents to know how the two other companies’ proposals stacked up against Camelot Global’s — the type of disclosure that surrounds many types of bidding for contracts at all governmental levels. But, thanks to Corbett’s less-than-admirable way of pursuing this privatization objective, they apparently never will know.

Thus, the public never will be able to make an educated decision on how well the Corbett administration performed in this deal.

Many state property owners are unhappy about the meager tax benefits they’ve realized from casino gambling profits. The question now becomes whether senior citizen programs funded by the lottery will obtain the optimistic financial benefits that Corbett’s dive into lottery privatization would seem to predict.

Secrecy is cause for concern, especially when many top government officials are excluded from knowing details, especially about outlays involving tens of millions of dollars.

The $3.5 billion Pennsylvania Lottery is one of the nation’s biggest. It must not become the site of one of the biggest lottery blunders.

Concern about the lottery deal is justified in growing.