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A word of advice for elected officials: If the veterans charity you're working with owns a string of Internet cafés which specialize in cash-prize "sweepstakes," you might want to steer clear. And not introduce legislation on their behalf.

That lesson comes too late for Florida Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll, who resigned her position yesterday in a terse letter sent to Governor Rick Scott. Carroll, the first black woman elected to the state House of Representatives as a Republican, joined Scott's gubernatorial campaign in 2010.

Between her retirement from the Navy in 1999 and her election in 2003, Carroll founded a public relations firm, 3N. & J.C., that represented, among others, a non-profit organization called Allied Veterans of the World. Unlike most non-profits, Allied Veterans ran over three dozen Internet cafés around the state. At least some of the cafés featured sweepstakes competitions, in which players reserved computer time, then checking a number on the machine to see if they'd won. A 2011 report by TCPalm.com focused on criticism that the game was a poorly masked form of gambling, a claim rebutted by Allied Veterans representative Jerry Bass, who likened the game to McDonald's contests. TCPalm's report also indicated that at least one of the cafés brought in $100,000 a week.