BC gamblers deserve ironclad proof that insiders are squeaky clean
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.
