What should be done about the lottery scandal?

The Ombudsman of Ontario in his recent report stated that from 1999 to July 2006, about $100 million in prizes in which each prize was worth more than $50,000 have been won by retail owners or their employees. What this means is that rightful lottery winners were being taken advantage of by dishonest retailers who took the prizes for themselves.

The way they were doing it was simple enough. The customer would walk into the convenience store, pencil in the numbers he chose then hand the ticket over to the store’s owner or employee who would then check to see if the customer was an instant winner. If the customer was an instant winner and the amount of the prize was large (such as $50,000 or more) he would tell the customer that he didn’t win or alternatively, say he won a hundred dollars and then make the claim for himself for the larger amount of the prize.

The fact that many of customers lost twice on the same ticket which has now been confirmed, shows just as how susceptible the general public is to the nefarious and dishonest employees and owners of these stores that are permitted to have the lottery machines.

Dave Bryans, President, Ontario Convenience Stores Association said in the Toronto Star with respect to the owners and employees of the convenient stores in Ontario and I quote in part; “The vast majority of these (people) are honest, small-business people who support their families by serving communities all across the province.”
That means that a fair number of these people are crooked and are ripping off the general public. Since the Ombudsman says the average amount being stolen from the customers is $50,000 and $100 million has been stolen, a minimum of 200 owners and employees in these convenient stores are ripping off their customers. Admittedly, 200 is a small number considering the fact that there are 10,000 convenient stores in Ontario but when you consider what your odds are at winning any prize, it doesn’t help that your odds at winning are decreased by the fact that the man or woman you are buying the lottery ticket from is a thief and is stealing your chance of winning a large prize.

One customer (Edmonds) won a $250,000 prize but when he went to claim it, the retailer he bought the ticket from, claimed that he was the owner of the ticket. The Corporation fought the customer in court and spent nearly $500,000 fighting him and finally settled by paying the customer $200,000. The retailer got the other $50,000 but had his lottery machine taken from him.

The lottery corporation's outrageous disregard for ticket buyers shows just how badly the organization had gone off the rails. Ontario Ombudsman André Marin concluded in a scathing report that the lottery corporation "knew full well that Mr. Edmonds was far from alone." Not only did it have ample reason to suspect that store clerks and other "insiders" were winning more often than they should, Marin says it also "was fully aware that the measures it put in place to guard against retailer fraud were woefully inadequate."

Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation says that it will conduct its own investigation into this scandal. Those officials who are dismissed will be given an overcompensating severance package paid by the taxpayers as is the general disgusting practice in this country

All retailers should be subject to a rigorous review when presenting a winning ticket, and any retailer found to have committed a wrongdoing should be held accountable and denied the privilege of selling lottery tickets ever again.

Among Marin's other recommendations is for the province to establish a new process to deal with disputed prize claims and a zero-tolerance policy for retailer fraud. But he stopped short of calling on Queen's Park to ban all retailers from buying lottery tickets.

In my opinion, no retailer or employee should be permitted to purchase a lottery ticket from the store he owns or works in. Let him purchase the ticket from another store. Every store that is associated with the lottery industry should have a hand-held machine in which the customer places his ticket in it and after typing his name on the keyboard, he will learn right then and there if he won a prize and what the prize is. The information will then go directly to the computer at the headquarters of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission. If this procedure is undertaken, it is highly unlikely that customers will be ripped off again by unscrupulous retailers and their employees who operate the lottery machines.