In Ontario, almost $500 million is spent a year on the advertising and promotion of government-sponsored gambling; whereas, $38 million is directed to treatment, research and education.

Manufacturers’ anti-smoking ads ineffective: study

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

October 31, 2006 WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

Television ads that tobacco companies say are designed to discourage teenagers from smoking do no such thing, and some may actually encourage youths to smoke, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Their study of more than 100,000 U.S. teenagers show the ads may do more harm than good, the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Public Health. "This study provides more proof that the tobacco industry is all smoke and mirrors," said M. Cass Wheeler, chief executive officer of the American Heart Association. "The tobacco industry is addicted to lying and in truth wants our kids to become addicted to tobacco. If they were serious about reducing smoking rates, they would stop spending $15 billion a year to promote their deadly products."

Melanie Wakefield of the Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Michigan got television viewing data from Nielsen Media Research. They looked at the reach and frequency of tobacco company-sponsored ads and whether they were seen by 12-year-olds to 17-year-olds in the largest 75 U.S. media markets, covering close to 80 percent of all U.S. households, from 1999 to 2002.

They then looked at surveys of 8th, 10th and 12th graders in 48 states collected in the same period for a study on tobacco use and beliefs at the University of Michigan. The data showed no correlation between frequency of the industry’s anti-smoking ads and actual or intended smoking by the teens.

"This research provides the clearest evidence to date that tobacco-sponsored ads don’t work," Wakefield, also with the University of Illinois, said in a statement. "Tobacco-sponsored ads targeted at youth have no impact and those targeted at parents seem to have an adverse effect on students who are in their middle and later teenage years."

DELAYING BUT NOT PREVENTING

The researchers noted that cigarette giant Philip Morris launched a national $100 million television "Think. Don’t Smoke" campaign in December 1998. "Lorillard Tobacco Company also launched a U.S.-televised youth smoking prevention campaign with the slogan, ‘Tobacco is Whacko if You’re a Teen,"’ they added. Lorillard is owned by Loews Group.

They noted that in one tobacco trial, Carolyn Levy, a former director of Philip Morris youth smoking prevention programs, "admitted that the aim of their programs was to delay smoking until age 18" — not to prevent teens from ever smoking.

In the survey, teens living in markets where many parent-oriented ads aired were less likely to remember having seen such an ad, and were more likely to say they might smoke in the future. "It is conceivable that tobacco company smoking prevention ads could have even greater adverse effects on youth smoking behavior than suggested by this study," they wrote.

Peggy Roberts, a spokeswoman with Philip Morris, said the tobacco company does extensive research to ensure that its ads are effective with parents. "We haven’t found anything (in our research) to indicate that this study’s conclusions are valid," she said. Roberts said summer research showed that 61 percent of parents of kids from 10 to 17 years old were aware of at least one of the Philip Morris ads, and of those, a majority indicated that they had talked to their children about not smoking after seeing the ads.

Roberts also took issue with the comments attributed to Levy, saying such comments would have been inconsistent with the company’s goal. "I personally would have a hard time envisioning that she would have said such a thing," Roberts said. (Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs in Atlanta)

The Problem Gambling Community Program purpose is to strengthen the
capacity of communities to respond to the negative impacts of
gambling. The program works in collaboration with Saskatchewan Health
to deliver the public education and community development components
of Saskatchewan’ s problem gambling program.

Bill Ursel
Director
Problem Gambling Community Program

On Line Gambling and Problem Gambling Review
108th Edition: Methodists Stand Firm, On line Gambling Growth, Key
Conference in Alberta

1) The Human Face of Mental Illness: Problem Gambling Connection

The Canadian government report `The Human Face of Mental Health and
Mental Illness’ notes problem gambling within the text of the report.
The information in a previous report has been updated and new data
has been added from the 2002 Statistics Canada, Canadian Community
Health Survey Cycle Mental Health and Well-being, the 2002-2003
Hospital Mental Health Database, and the 2004 Health Behaviours of
School Children Survey.

Social cost, prevalence rates and community impacts are noted in the
report.

http://tinyurl.com/y4gfry

2) Growth in On Line Gambling Expected

Even though President Bush has signed a law to curb Internet gambling,
investors in the handful of U.S.-listed Internet gambling companies
may not want to fold their hands just yet.

Online gambling is expected to expand to a $15 billion industry this
year from $12 billion in 2005, according to DesJardins Securities
analyst David Shore, who cited statistics from Global Betting and
Gaming Consultants.

http://tinyurl.com/snmkj

3) The Meaning of Gambling among Ontario Seniors in Small and Rural
Communities

The authors Joan E. Norris, Ph.D., C.Psych and Joseph A. Tindale,
Ph.D. note "Just as there is little research on seniors who gamble
and their families, there is also very little that focuses on older
people living in small towns and rural areas. In fact, distinction by
community size is absent despite the growing number of small and rural
Ontario communities that have built casinos or racetracks as a
solution to economic and social problems." The survey instrument
included a compilation of measures with established psychometric
properties, including: the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI),
Windsor Problem Gambling Screen for Older Adults (Windsor Screen),
Gambling Attitudes Scale (GAS), Family of Origin Scale, and questions
from the Guelph
Family Gambling Items questionnaire. Responses were received from
seniors across the province (n = 2,292).

http://tinyurl.com/y5ya7o

4) Key Conference: Addressing Gambling-related Harm through
Evidence-based Practices Friday, March 30 & Saturday, March 31, 2007
Banff, Alberta, Canada.

Conference 2007 will focus on innovations on the treatment of problem
gambling. New developments in treatment and in treatment systems will
be highlighted. Advancements in basic research with implications for
prevention and treatment will also be presented.

http://tinyurl.com/y6uabm

5) British Reaction to U.S. On Line Legislation

The British Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, October 31/06 renewed her
criticism of US authorities’ stance on online gambling, calling it
"the new prohibition" .

"It [the US stance] is the new prohibition. In relation to gambling,
you have three choices - you allow the market to rip, which some
jurisdictions do; you prohibit, which some jurisdictions do; or you
regulate," she said.

http://tinyurl.com/uj3uu

6) Oregon Replication Study

The study was conducted by the Oregon Gambling Addiction Treatment
Foundation as part of an ongoing effort to provide empirical evidence
to policy and decision makers, program managers, and the interested
public regarding the estimated prevalence of problem and pathological
gambling among Oregonians.

Over the past 10 years, the Foundation has commissioned 6 major
studies including the first adult gambling prevalence study in 1997,
the first adolescent gambling prevalence study in 1998, the first
older adult gambling prevalence study and an adult gambling prevalence
replication study in 2001, an etiological study of pathological
gambling in 2002, and this most current adult gambling prevalence
replication study.

http://tinyurl.com/y4p6by

7) British Methodists Stand Firm On Regulating On Line Gambling

Anthea Cox, Coordinating Secretary for Public Life and Social Justice,
Methodist Church in Great Britain declared: "The Methodist Church
welcomes the Government’s initiative in seeking international
agreement on the regulation of e-gambling."

http://tinyurl.com/y4db5e

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/u/register/?ref=society-albertas-gamble-with-gambling

 

Alberta’s Gamble with Gambling

The “crack cocaine” hooks a senior mandarin—and the provincial treasury

by Andrew Nikiforuk

---

This article is only available to
Walrus magazine subscribers

BC gamblers deserve ironclad proof that insiders are squeaky clean

Vancouver Sun, Monday, October 30, 2006

Ordinary British Columbians are not the only ones attracted by the lure of easy money promoted by the B.C. Lottery Corp. Historically, crime and gambling have always gone hand in hand. The fact that casinos and lotteries have been legitimate businesses since governments got in the game has not eliminated the allure of all that cash floating around.

A report from the Richmond RCMP criminal intelligence section recently obtained by Vancouver Sun reporter Chad Skelton said that organized crime has gained a foothold in that city since the opening of the River Rock Casino. According to the report, the casino has attracted money launderers, fraud artists and loan sharks looking for desperate gamblers.

The recently released annual report of B.C.’s Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch showed that investigations of criminal activity have increased almost in lock-step with the increase in gambling revenues of all kinds over the past few years. So it’s a bit of a surprise that the issue of store clerks in Ontario who have won a statistically improbable number of jackpots has elicited so little concern here.

CBC television reported last week that it found an 82-year-old man who had purchased a winning ticket, only to be told by a store clerk that he had won a free ticket. The clerk subsequently cashed in a winning ticket worth $250,000. The investigators also found evidence that such thefts may be common. They found that the clerks who sell lottery tickets win significantly more often than they should, based on the odds facing ordinary ticket buyers.

Lottery sales are not growing like casino revenues in B.C., but they still represent a very big business. The B.C. Lottery Corp. hopes to sell $1 billion worth of tickets to British Columbians this year, up just slightly from last year, through a vast network of retail outlets. The corporation says there is no evidence that store clerks in B.C. who sell tickets are being tempted to try to keep winners for themselves. But BCLC also doesn’t keep the kind of statistics that would allow it to know if clerks are beating the odds to an extent that would indicate the possibility of cheating.

A corporation spokesman told The Sun that there has only been one case in the past decade of a retailer trying to steal a customer’s prize. But since BCLC doesn’t keep track of how many retailers win prizes, the corporation can’t perform the kind of analysis that a University of Toronto statistician used to show that two-thirds of the big lottery wins in Ontario by insiders may have involved deception.

Andre Marin, Ontario’s ombudsman, launched an investigation last week into how the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. protects the public from theft or fraud. Marin said rightly that lotteries are more than a game of chance, they are also a game of confidence. That confidence, he said, has been shaken by allegations of insiders lining their pockets and further reducing the already long odds faced by ordinary gamblers.

With more than $2 billion in revenues at stake from all of its operations, the B.C. Lottery corporation can scarcely afford any loss of confidence among the gambling public. We don’t know what a statistical analysis of insider winning would turn up, but given the shadow cast by the Ontario reports, it’s worth finding out.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006 © 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

Online gambling fuels addicts suicide conference told

Last Updated: Friday, October 27, 2006 | 12:04 PM CT

CBC News

Unregulated internet gambling is simply adding to the growing problem of addiction, delegates attending the Canadian Association of Suicide Prevention conference in Toronto were told this week.

An estimated 200 compulsive gamblers commit suicide in Canada every year, said Terry Flynn, a director of spiritual care at the Bellwood Health Services facility in Toronto.

The growth of gambling on the internet, where no regulations exist, is making the problem worse, Flynn said.

"It’s hidden. You can lie about it and tell people you’re doing your homework or that you’re researching something, but in fact you’re getting into deep trouble," he said.

The ever-increasing options available to gamblers in the North — everything from card games to the internet — are contributing to the growing problem, Iqaluit counsellor Sheila Levy told delegates.

"They are doing very well with their jobs and making a lot of money, and yet their children are going hungry often because the money goes perhaps in one night in gambling," Levy said.

Tuktoyaktuk delegate Helen Gruben said gambling addiction is also on the rise in the Northwest Territories.

"Gambling is a real problem," she said. "Now it’s the kids that stay home alone."

Organizers of the conference say about 3,500 people commit suicide in Canada each year or about 10 per day.

Copyright © CBC 2006 

The price of easy money

Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post, Thursday, October 26, 2006

The good news for hockey fans in Pittsburgh came last week not from the hockey team, but from the Pittsburgh Gaming Task Force.

The Penguins play in the oldest arena in the NHL and without a new arena, the team’s future in Pittsburgh is in doubt. Yet nobody has the money for a new arena. Enter casino operator Isle of Capri, which is bidding for a casino license to be awarded at the end of the year. Isle of Capri has said it will pay US$290-million toward a new hockey arena if it gets a slot machine license. Last week, the Gaming Task Force praised the plan, saying it is the strongest of the bids so far, raising hopes that Isle of Capri will win the license and the gambling profits will save the Penguins.

It has come to this, to this humiliation. Our game is now dependent on gaming. But then so much does. It’s the future.

Gambling — always considered to be a slightly dodgy if not, strictly speaking, immoral recreation — has purchased new credibility in the public eye. And it has purchased it the old fashioned way, with cold, hard cash.

Need to redevelop a depressed part of town? Build a casino — as is part of the Isle of Capri plan for Pittsburgh. Worried about a declining industrial sector? Build a casino — as they did on both sides of the Detroit River, with Detroit and Windsor competing for gamblers as they once did for car plants. Concerned about the continuing plight of native Canadians or Americans? Build a casino — Indian reserves are highly desirable places for gambling, no doubt making a contribution to the preservation of traditional tribal cultures. Eager to establish a new international tourist destination? Build casinos by the dozen — as they are doing in Macau, with the former Portuguese colony set to overtake Las Vegas this year in overall gambling revenues. Or need some new MRI machines in our strapped health care system? Provincial governments in Canada took in $7.3-billion last year in profits from lotteries, video-lottery terminals and casinos, a figure that has grown 79% since 1992.

There is hardly a cause which does not seek to feed at the gambling trough. Parents raising money for sports teams, schools wishing to support the drama program, charities looking for new revenues — everyone is down at the local casino, taking their cut of the revenues thrown off by the apparently insatiable appetite for gambling.

Gambling per se is not immoral and, in moderation, is a legitimate form of recreation. At the same time, it is well known that widespread gambling puts temptation in front of those who will fritter away the rent money, and disproportionately draws upon the already limited resources of the poor. There is something ignoble about using it as an all-purpose means of fundraising, and as a replacement for revenues previously provided by taxation or charitable giving.

Yet there are few who oppose the trend. Bishop Frederick Henry of Calgary is one, having decreed some years back that his parishes would no longer use gambling for fundraising. He asked the same of the Catholic schools, and last spring the school board formally refused, saying in essence that the Catholic bishop was in no position to make moral decisions for the Catholic schools. But Bishop Henry is not one for bluffing, and promised sanctions against the schools if they did not give up their gambling habit. Last month, the Catholic school board reluctantly complied.

It was illustrative of how deeply entrenched the gambling mentality is. The Calgary Catholic schools took in some $2-million in fundraising from gambling, a pittance given an annual budget of several hundred million. The provincial surplus in Alberta runs to the billions of dollars. It is implausible that Calgary’s schools needed to resort to gambling revenues. They did so because it is easy.

The prospect of easy money draws the gambler to the casino. But public policy should resist the temptation of easy money. There are other ways to raise money that are harder — taxation, donation — and they should be, for they involve a level of accountability and fairness that gambling does not.

Easy money never comes without a cost; somebody has to pay. The casino doesn’t care who it is; our governments and our charities should.

© National Post 2006 previous page 1 2 

© 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

Friday, October 27, 2006 | 11:30 AM MT, CBC
News

An Alberta man is fighting a $10 million lawsuit from an American
gaming company after he says he blew the whistle on casino
video slot machines that he alleges could be made to pay out on
demand.

Zues Yaghi, an Edmonton resident, said he has been the subject of a
search warrant, a gag order and a lawsuit from WMS Gaming
Inc. for reporting the flaws in its poker machines, which the
company has since fixed. WMS Gaming has its headquarters in Waukegan, Ill.

Yaghi said this week that the gambling public has a right to know if
machines have back doors, or secret mechanisms known as
Easter eggs, which could give some gamblers an advantage.

When he first discovered the design flaws, he said he was
appalled.

"I was angry. The first thing I was thinking, someone here
should be shot for this," he said. "That’s what I  thought. You know,
somebody’s slipping aces."

In 1999, Yaghi went to the Alberta Gaming and Liquor
Commission to report the flaw, saying he found evidence of a secret door
that had been written into the computer software to allow players of
casino video slot machines to collect jackpots with a few simple
clicks.

Yaghi demonstrated to the commission how he could play the
video slot machines and win. He said he wanted to be hired to help the
commission fix the problem.

But instead of being offered a job or at least thanked for
being a good citizen, Yaghi was served with a rare form of citizen
search warrant by WMS Gaming, whose officials came to his door in
February 2000.

‘Big fat warrant’

"Knock on the door and I look and there’s a nice collection
of people that I haven’t seen before and they have a big fat warrant
to enter my premises," he said.

"It didn’t have a time limit on it. It just allowed them to
search and seize whatever they wanted which was relevant, or could be
relevant to WMS. For three days, they were coming back and forth."

A few days later, the company obtained a gag order that
prevented Yaghi from telling anyone how a player could get the slots
to pay out. And it filed a $10 million lawsuit.

WMS Gaming officials will not speak about the lawsuit. But
according to court documents, the company said it offered Yaghi
$50,000 as a reward and an incentive for him to keep quiet. The company
alleges in the documents that Yaghi asked for more money and refused
to be silent.

According to its annual report in 2001, WMS Gaming
reprogrammed its software to correct the problem that Yaghi found. That
didn’t stop U.S. regulators from fining the company for failure to
notify them about the problem.

The company has made peace with state and provincial gaming
authorities, including Alberta, by paying millions in
compensation for lost revenue.

It denies that any programmer deliberately designed a game
that could cash out on demand. And its lawsuit against Yaghi continues
in the courts.

WMS Gaming, a subsidiary of WMS Industries Inc., designs,
manufactures and markets video and reel-spinning gaming devices and
video lottery terminals.

It started out in the video lottery terminal business in
1991. The company created, manufactured and placed VLTs in
jurisdictions throughout North America. Once established in the video
lottery market, it moved into the casino gaming business with the
introduction of a video poker game. A year later, the company rolled out
a line of upright slot machines.

Copyright (c) CBC 2006

LONDON - Britain’s culture secretary on Friday compared the U.S. crackdown on online gambling to the failed alcohol ban of the Prohibition as she prepared to host an international summit on Internet gambling next week.

Tessa Jowell warned that the U.S. ban on Internet gambling would make unregulated offshore sites the "modern equivalent of speakeasies," illegal bars that opened in 1920s America when alcohol was banned.

U.S. Congress caught the gambling industry by surprise earlier this month when it added to an unrelated bill a provision that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to settle payments for online gambling sites. President Bush signed the law Oct. 14.

The decision closed off the most lucrative region in a market worth $15.5 billion this year in "spend" value — the amount gambling companies win from their clients, or the amount gamblers lose.

Several London-based Internet gambling companies and a handful in Europe and Australia subsequently sold off or shut down their U.S. operations, losing around 80 percent of their combined business in the process.

U.S. officials have declined to participate in Tuesday’s gambling summit in London, where lawmakers from 30 countries will discuss ways to regulate the industry, including the protection of minors and keeping the industry free of crime.

Officials from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, Malta, Costa Rica and Antigua and Barbuda are expected to attend.

Antigua in particular has been engaging in a strong defense of Internet gambling, one of the tiny Caribbean state’s few economic success stories.

It argues that the U.S. ban is in direct contravention to a ruling by the World Trade Organization last year that the United States amend some of its legislation to permit Antiguan gambling operations to offer their services to U.S. citizens on a level playing field.

Mark Mendel, who leads Antigua’s WTO legal team, said Friday that the summit would put further pressure on the United States to comply with the ruling.

"Ultimately, I think they are going to have to satisfy us," he said. Mendel said online gambling was vital to Antigua, whose only other industry of note is tourism.

Next week’s gathering has been months in the planning and officials intended to discuss ways to stop criminals from defrauding online gamblers and to prevent sites being used for money laundering.

However, the new U.S. law is likely to be the focus of talks. Jowell said that regulating sites worked better than prohibition.

"America should have learnt the lessons of Prohibition," she said, noting that legislation that was meant to stop alcohol from causing harm in practice forced otherwise law-abiding customers into the hands of the bootleggers.

Under new British gambling laws, online operators have a "social responsibility" duty written into licenses and policed by the independent Gambling Commission watchdog.

It requires them to work to prevent underage gambling, give prominent warnings about addiction and inform users how much time and money they have spent on the site.

"Broadly speaking we have three choices: you can prohibit, like the U.S., do nothing or regulate, like we have," Jowell said. "I firmly believe we have chosen the path that will do the most to protect children and vulnerable people and keep out crime."

Lottery deli a magnet for drop-in gamblers

Dotty’s - Video machines, floral decor and no ban on
smoking make it a local hangout

Thursday, October 26, 2006
KAREN JOHNSON

OREGON CITY — It’s 11 a.m., and already more than 100
customers have made their way through the glass doors of Dotty’s.

When manager Sharman Hunt opened up the store at 7 a.m. on
a recent day, she said several people were lined up outside, waiting
to buy cigarettes or take their chances on one of the store’s six
video lottery machines.

Shelley DeBurque, 39, who works next door as a cashier at
Danielsons Fresh Marketplace, is one of the regulars. She drops in for
smoking breaks.

"There’s good people in here and great customer service,"
DeBurque said, holding a Camel Light in one hand and a soft drink in
the other. The cigarettes are among the cheapest around, and several
co-workers also drop in during breaks or after shifts.

Hunt said the Oregon City Dotty’s started as a safe place
for women to gamble. The walls are draped with floral wallpapers and
decorated with hand-crafted wicker wreaths, plastic flowers and ceramic
farm animals. It has since become a local hangout.

"When you know a customer’s cigarette brand, it makes them
feel like it’s a home away from home," Hunt said. "We just take care
of them," she said.

Since the first Dotty’s store opened in Oregon more than a
decade ago, the chain has blurred the distinctions between smoke shop,
deli and minicasino. Unlike traditional gambling establishments,
"video delis" are attracting customers who might stay away from casinos
or taverns, said Chuck Baumann, an Oregon Lottery spokesman.

"A middle-aged woman who might not feel comfortable going
into a bar, for example, can go to a deli-like establishment that is
less intimidating," Baumann said.

Five of Clackamas County’s top 10 video lottery retailers
sport Dotty’s cursive red logo. Countywide, Dotty’s is leading a
surge in video lottery sales, which increased 30 percent from 2005
to 2006.

In 2006, the six video lottery machines at Dotty’s in
Oregon City racked up an average of $215,271 in sales, for a combined
total of $1.3 million. Other Dotty’s outlets had even more sales.

"Many of these establishments probably wouldn’t be in
business without video poker or slots," said Peter Walsh, program manager
for Cascadia Behavioral Center, which treats problem gamblers.

Michael Ehrler, 61, calls Dotty’s his "home base." He pops
in with his Queensland heeler, named Hootie, several times a day for a
plate of fries, a round of video poker or a root beer.

At Dotty’s "People come in for a beer, a smoke and then
maybe to sit down for a game," said Ehrler, who likes the convenience of
Dotty’s location.

"Sometimes I just come by to check in."

Karen Johnson: 503-294-5918;
karenjohnson@news.oregonian.com

For another similar case (with a much different outcome) google Alberta’s "ZUES YAGHI" or go to http://www.citizenvoice.ca/

and check the forum on gambling lawsuits.  The "Easter Eggs" forum on www.citizenvoice.ca describes one way VLT technology can be corrupted.

But don’t tap into the system like this

By CHRIS LAMBIE, Halifax Herald Staff Reporter, Friday October 27, 2006

A university dropout who bilked the Atlantic Lottery Corp. out of $250,000 by figuring out a way to predict the winning outcome of video lottery games suspects there are other people out there doing exactly the same thing.

Over two years in the late 1990s, the self-taught math wizard used a flaw he discovered in the game software to gamble his way to a small fortune.

"The odds are I’m not alone," said Jean-Guy, who spoke on condition his last name not be published.

"Somewhere out there, there’s some computer programmer, plus a gambling machine, plus the determination to figure it out. There’s got to be. There just has to be another one."

The 34-year-old, now a legitimate computer consultant in Ottawa, got his start servicing illegal "grey market" video lottery machines.

"I was able to actually obtain the same equipment that was in the bars," he said.

Through reverse engineering, Jean-Guy designed a computer program that allowed him to predict when jackpots were coming.

"I could go into a bar, take two snapshots of a VLT screen with a camera, feed that information into a computer and within 20 seconds I could tell you anything you wanted to know," Jean-Guy said.

Using family and friends as accomplices, he would equip them with a hidden camera and cellular telephone or two-way radio with an earpiece and send them into a bar. They would sit down at a terminal and start playing, with Jean-Guy giving them computer-aided advice from a van parked outside.

"I would tell the person when to bet low and when to bet high," he said. "I could see the screen of the VLT because the camera was looking at it and transmitting the image to a video receiver I put together in a van. It was like spy stuff."

When odds were bad, he’d tell the player to bet low, but when the jackpot loomed, they’d gamble the maximum.

"I was just turning the machine into my own personal little bank machine."

But Jean-Guy and his associates got greedy and started going for back-to-back wins.

"That’s what really got us nailed," he said. "Most people would take their winnings and say, ‘Yeah, I won,’ and walk away. But I’d be like, ‘Hey, you know there’s another one in 150 spins.’ That’s where we fouled up."

Jean-Guy figures if he’d been stealthier, the streak might have lasted longer.

"If I’d toned it down a bit, I’m sure it would have survived indefinitely until the equipment was phased out," he said.

But in 1998, a suspicious bartender at a Sydney hotel tipped off authorities to the scam after Jean-Guy and his cohorts won one too many jackpots.

Jean-Guy doesn’t believe he broke the law. Even Mounties were puzzled over what charges he should face, he said.

"Nothing in the Criminal Code actually covered what I did. But they needed blood."

He eventually pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a computer. Jean-Guy got to keep the money — most of it had been spent on home improvements — and he walked away with a slap on the wrist.

As part of the plea bargain, he cut a deal with the Atlantic Lottery Corp.

"I basically cut a deal with them and said, ‘I’ll tell you what the problem is and how to fix it,’ " Jean-Guy said, adding he was "paid pretty well" for the contract.

"I got to meet a lot of interesting people, too. They flew a mathematician up from Australia the night I was arrested from one of the leading laboratories to meet with me."

The Atlantic Lottery Corp. has made a lot of security changes since Jean-Guy was caught, said Mike Randall, the Crown agency’s vice-president of communications.

"The ability to do that today is much more difficult than it was then, and the risk factor back then was deemed so low that he might be one in a million or one in a hundred million that he could have ever done what he did," Mr. Randall said.

One expert isn’t convinced.

"I would not think it would be too difficult for a very determined person who might have some connections to find ways to access the very latest of technologies in order to do precisely what hackers do, which is to figure out how to defeat that technology," said John McMullan, a sociologist and criminologist at Saint Mary’s University who studies gambling.

"The suggestions being made by people running the gambling industry that somehow or another their products are secure is not believable."

There’s a "reciprocal relationship" between criminals and security experts, he said.

"It’s almost a kind of a dance," Mr. McMullan said.

"The technologies improve. The people who are interested in defeating those technologies figure out how to do it and they excel beyond the existing technologies. The technology of security responds to the technology of crime and you’re locked in this ever-moving dance.

"Those people in the security industry who are concerned with the product they’re putting out on the marketplace obviously want to assure the public that everything is safe and secure. But the truth of the matter is those assurances have to be taken with a great big lump of salt because there are all kinds of cases where those technologies have been defeated."

( clambie@herald.ca)

© 2006 The Halifax Herald Limited