New suspicions raised about Ontario lotto retailers

Saturday, November 25, 2006 posted 03:32 AM EST

Ontario lottery officials are downplaying the latest news report that suggests retail insiders such as store clerks are winning a disproportionate number of prizes, this time on scratch-and-win games.

"I would caution folks from concluding that there are systemic problems," Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. president Duncan Brown said yesterday.

"We sell 225 million scratch tickets every year. Since 1999, we've had nine confirmed reports of potential tampering of tickets by retailers and about half of those cases were referred to the police. In at least one case, a charge was laid."

Mr. Brown was responding to a report on CBC's the fifth estate that suggested retailers have been winning as many as 10% of the major prizes available on scratch-and-win draws. The show suggested that "pinpricking," or slightly scratching the laminate on a ticket to see if it was a winner, is one technique employed by dishonest vendors.

Lottery officials, however, said yesterday the code indicating a winning ticket is never in the same location and noted the code or symbol for major prizes is no different from the code for smaller prizes under $300.

"You can't readily identify a winning ticket from a losing ticket," Mr. Brown insisted. "It's just not that simple. And our players are knowledgeable, so that even if a ticket was accidentally scratched or marked, they are not going to take it."

Mr. Brown said the gaming corporation is constantly seeking new methods to improve the security of the lottery system.

Yesterday's report was the second in a series that has caused an uproar over the integrity of Ontario's lottery system. In a show that aired earlier this month, the fifth estate reported research by a university professor who analyzed insider wins and found that 214 of them claimed prizes of $50,000 or more since 1999, even though the chances of that happening were a minuscule one in a trillion-trillion-trillion-trillion.

Mr. Brown said consultants hired by the lottery corporation have since concluded that a large number of retailers win because they tend to purchase more tickets than the general population.

In a bid to allay public concern about the system's security, the OLG announced a series of measures designed to ensure prize winners get their money.

The new procedures include the installation of electronic ticket checkers at all of the 9,000 participating retail outlets so consumers can verify their own numbers, new rules requiring purchasers to sign the backs of all tickets, a public education campaign and an expanded team of investigators to look into insider wins.

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