Posted on 03/27/2007 4:56:20 AM PDT by fanfan
We pay, they play
Keep lottery retailers out of the game
"This was a fraud on a mass scale "
-- Ontario Ombudsman
Andre Marin
Holy Craps! It kind of brings a whole new meaning to the saying the house always wins.
Turns out the store was winning, too -- at least some bluffers who worked in them.
It seems in Ontario they won a lot. How does some $86 million in jackpots stolen sound to you? How about 247 insider wins in seven years?
Sounds like a stacked deck.
But this house of cards is coming down fast since with this windfall it turns out these bandits didn't just have one arm -- but had both grabbing as much cash from the pot as they possibly could.
This was a game of chance that went a little better for those who happened to, by chance, have an affiliation with the Ontario Lottery Corp. At least now we understand there was a crime. But the question now is will anybody do some time?
It was fraud after all. And "tens of millions of dollars" was not taken as much from the government but from the dreams of you -- the fair-playing Ontario gambler.
Turns out the game was corrupt. But where are the criminal charges? Where is the criminal investigation?
So far we haven't seen the premier's poker face on this. Seems he sat out this game yesterday.
But Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal David Caplan said: "I wholeheartedly accept and support the findings of the ombudsman's investigation ... I am committed to implementing the recommendations to make Ontario's lottery system the gold standard in the industry."
Interesting he mentioned gold. There has been a pot of it there some.
But there are some who will call his bluff. The public was played for fools and when it comes to clearing the chips off the table, this whole deck should be shuffled. Immediately.
"The OLG was happy to ignore situations which should have led to more investigations," said Marin, who said his investigators told him that when told of problems, recently fired OLG boss Duncan Brown said, "sometimes you have to hold your nose."
The stench is vile. The smell of what they would do to collect that $6 billion in annual revenue for an addicted government coming in from suckers rolling the dice with those long-shot lottery tickets is obscene.
"The OLG has turned a blind eye to allegations of crime for many years," said Marin. "There's likely in the area of tens of millions of dollars that have been paid to unscrupulous retailers."
If that's so there should be 247 investigations commenced immediately and even more inside the brass at the Ontario lottery. All the retailers who are believed to have rigged the game should have their lottery machines taken away as well. And there should be restitution.
Of course, it's not all retailers. There are many good ones: Aziz Chatur, owner of Tobacco Haven and Intriguing Gifts in The Atrium on Bay, being one of them. His feeling is the future should see staff not touching a lottery ticket unless it is a winner.
"The onus should be on people to check their own ticket first," he said. "That will eliminate all problems."
It's a good idea -- as is no longer allowing anybody connected to the OLG to play any of the games.
"We would go along with that," said Aziz, adding neither he nor staffers Joanne Lee, Nafisa Kadva, Liliana Ojeda or Alnoor Kaba have ever won a major prize.
But for those lottery insiders who did by cheating, the table is closed and if Premier Dalton McGuinty has any guts and calls in the cops you'll be in a different kind of jackpot.
Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.
...never,ever bet on anything that can talk...
Doogle
All that and no description about how the fraud worked.
agreed, the article was essentially a meaningless rant to those of us without prior detailed knowledge of the event.
This article is nothing but blame without substance.
All State lottery's are bad, they support the notion that wealth can be gained without work.
No real information. Just ranting. Any details?
The above has more information.
Last week, CTV News revealed that OLG was pulling more than three million "Super Bingo" scratch cards from the marketplace after a complaint that buyers could spot winning tickets without scratching.
There have also been accusations that ticket retailers were winning a disproportionate number of jackpots.
Also, the CEO of Ontario Lottery and Gaming has resigned over the weekend, leaving even more doubt into what sort of fraud is going on with the scratch off games.
Exactly. But I think I know what it was from this line: "The onus should be on people to check their own ticket first," he said. "That will eliminate all problems."
I think people were asking the retailers to check their tickets to see if they won, the retailer would say "no" and keep the winning ticket.
This happens (but rarely.) They keep some losing tickets near the terminals, scan the known loser, tell customer is was a loser and throw the ticket in the bucket. When the customer leaves, they scan the real ticket.
An explanation would have helped, but from the comment about staff never touching a ticket unless it is already checked as a winner, suggests that employees would check a ticket for a customer, and if it won, they lie to the customer and say it is a loser, and offer to throw it away for them.
Thinking about it...
I wouldn't be surprised if there were fake lottery ticket machines taking in money that never goes to the lottery. The odds of somebody having a winning ticket from one of these fake machines is thin and therefore so are chances of being caught...
It would be and more profitable to counterfeit currency than to counterfeit scratch (instant win) tickets.
It would be extremely difficult and extremely expensive to reproduce a "fake" lottery terminal that would print on-line tickets (drawing games) that would come close to passing. The first time they had a winner with a counterfeit ticket the police raid the store.
Ombudsman's shocking findings:
# From 1999 to 2006, at least 78 retail owners and 131 retail employees won major lottery prizes, several in the millions of dollars. Only one claim was denied and smaller wins weren't even scrutinized.
# Retailers have been accused of keeping free tickets. One was paid $250,000 but couldn't identify where the original ticket had been played.
# The sister of a convenience store manager in Burlington presented a winning Super 7 free ticket for $12.5 million, lied about her affiliation to the store, could not say where the winning free-play ticket was generated or that she was even in the city when it was bought. She got the money.
# One retailer successfully claimed a winning 6/49 ticket, which he said his wife found behind their freezer when cleaning.
# In 2004, the OLG discovered "pin-pricking," a practice in which retailers lightly scratch the surface of instant-win tickets with a pin to see if they're winner. The OLG found 67 "blatantly scratched" tickets at one location in Oakville.
# The OLG knew retailers could cheat customers of winnings but was more concerned with the impact of bad press on its bottom line than the fraud itself.
# When confronted by five suspicious claims, the 2004 CEO responded, "Sometimes you hold your nose" and pay the claim.
# Investigations into suspicious wins by retailers were "more friendly than purposeful."
# Despite evidence of fraud, OLG considered moving to a system where it stopped asking who purchased a ticket and pay whomever submitted it.
# Ombud recommends independent regulator oversee lotteries to restore public trust.
For those that didn't understand the method of the fraud:
The cashier would tell holders of winning tickets THAT THEY WERE NOT WINNERS, and then claim the prize themselves.
Given that the marketing of the lottery is a fraud in itself, should anyone be surprised that even the crooked rules are being broken?
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