Province to probe the windfalls of lottery retailers
Opposition wants outside investigator
Statisticians lay bets there was fraud
Oct. 26, 2006. 01:00 AM
ROB FERGUSON AND CURTIS RUSH
STAFF REPORTERS
TheStar.com

Queen's Park has ordered a [bold]probe[/bold] of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation's security measures in the wake of allegations that an astonishing number of inside retailers have won prizes of $50,000 or more since 1999.

"If there is anything we can do to strengthen that we certainly will act," David Caplan, the minister responsible for the corporation, said yesterday.

Caplan said he has ordered OLGC officials to [bold]report back "as soon as possible" on ways to fix any problems[/bold] following a CBC the fifth estate documentary that suggested unscrupulous vendors were stealing winning lottery tickets from customers.

But opposition parties immediately slammed Caplan as [bold]not doing enough, with the NDP calling for an [bold]"independent, third-party" investigation [/bold] by Ontario's provincial auditor and the Tories saying only a police probe would clear the air.
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"Unless it's explained, unless it's investigated, unless it's addressed, people are going to lose confidence in Ontario's lottery and gaming system. And that's a serious problem for the government," said Kormos....
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Do you think we could get OLGC people to work on PR (or rather government relations) for online poker because they certainly seem to have this sh*t figured out...did you notice that there are no real reprocussions to the lottery system itself? Even the police probe would, I presume; be intended to penalize the offenders and not the persons ignoring said data that their system is in some way flawed. To me this implies that they (OLGC) have been/possibly still are stealing money from customers when they purchase a ticket to draw they have reduced (and unstated/unacknowledged) odds to win?

I don't buy lottery tickets..but as a member of the gaming family (albeit the less attractive and more clever little sister that poker is) I'll take the opportunity to say MARCIA MARCIA MARCIA