Gamblor’s World

Author: Leslie, Keith
Source: Prince George Citizen
Published Date: Dec 18, 2007

Description:
Ontario Provincial Police are to release the details Wednesday [Dec. 19] on charges they have laid in an alleged multimillion-dollar “insider” lottery win. The charges come months after Ontario’s Ombudsman slammed the Ontario Lottery Corporation for ignoring allegations of widespread fraud by retailers who were winning too many prizes. In his report, Andre Marin accused the corporation of “coddling” ticket sellers and playing “games” with customers who complained they had been cheated of their jackpots.

Author:
Source: Newswire.ca
Published Date: Dec 19, 2007

Description:
The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) is paying a group of co-workers a $5.75 million lottery prize after it was determined that this group purchased a winning ticket in 2004, Kelly McDougald, OLG CEO announced today. “We are glad to be paying the group this prize,” said McDougald. “The OLG conducted its own thorough and independent investigation that confirmed the group’s claim that a winning ticket paid out to someone else several years ago was in fact purchased by them.” The case involves co-workers who bought tickets together in 2004. They contacted the OLG in July 2007 with evidence to support a claim that they purchased the winning ticket for a prize of $5.75 million. OLG referred the case to the OPP. At the same time, OLG conducted its own independent investigation which confirmed the group’s claim that they purchased the ticket.

http://www.responsiblegambling.org/staffsearch/latest_news_articles_details.cfm?intID=11003

Description of show:

“It all started with an unlikely hero, Bob Edmonds of Coboconk, Ontario.

Last year, the fifth estate told you his story: how Edmonds was cheated out of his $250,000 lottery winnings by a store clerk and then was cheated again by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation when they made him go through a four-year court battle to get his money. Bob Edmonds eventually got that money, but his case was not unique.

The story sparked an investigation by Ontario’s Ombudsman, Andre Marin. In two subsequent updates, the fifth estate revealed more problems within the lottery system as well as other suspicious cases, including one Super 7 jackpot worth $12.5 million.

The $12.5 million jackpot

Kathleen Chung didn’t want to talk about the lottery win with the fifth estate.In Twice Lucky, Linden MacIntyre tells the story of that 2003 $12.5 million jackpot and of the young woman, who walked in to the OLG’s offices to claim the prize, gave inconsistent stories to lottery officials and couldn’t remember any details about her ticket. Lottery officials were concerned enough to hold on to the prize money, but failed to do a thorough investigation. When no one else came forward to claim the prize after one year, the OLG paid $12.5 million to someone they suspected of lying.

This case so shocked the Ombudsman that he highlighted it in his report of March, 2007. The next day, the Ontario Minister responsible for lotteries, David Caplan, ordered the OPP to investigate the $12.5 million jackpot as well as other “insider” win cases. So, what has happened since that investigation was ordered? Find out on the fifth estate’s on-going investigation into retailer troubles at the OLG.”

at http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/twicelucky/

14/11/07, The Cape Breton Post

HALIFAX — Officials from the Atlantic Lottery Corp. have fielded a series of tough questions from a Nova Scotia legislative committee about measures taken to ensure the integrity of its games.

Corporation officials were explain to the public accounts committee why retailers won big prizes at rates up to 19 times more than should have been expected.

Corporation CEO Michelle Carinci says while she can’t explain the statistics, steps have been taken to protect customers and that complaints are followed up on.

Carinci also admitted that the procurement process wasn’t transparent enough in the awarding of a recent Internet gaming contract to Swedish company Boss Media.

continued
at http://www.capebretonpost.com/index.cfm?sid=80263&sc=145

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10447025

5:00AM Thursday June 21, 2007
The New Zealand Herald
By Stuart Dye
Loan sharks are luring gamblers by approaching them as they ponder their losses inside the casino, Parliament was told yesterday.

Green MP Sue Bradford said gamblers at the SkyCity casino in Auckland were borrowing as much as $10,000 a time to continue playing.

In some cases, she said, gamblers were introduced to the loan shark by a casino dealer.

The Government has ordered an investigation into allegations of loan sharking and financial irregularities at Christchurch Casino.

But the Green Party wants a wider public inquiry. Speaking under parliamentary privilege, Ms Bradford told MPs there were believed to be 10 loan shark groups working at SkyCity in Auckland, both on the ground floor and in the VIP lounges.

“It has been reported to me that the minimum loan in the VIP area is $10,000,” Ms Bradford said.

Those who fell behind in repayments faced threats and some women had even been forced into prostitution to work off their debt, she said.

continued ….

Lee Greenberg, CanWest News Service, Wednesday, June 13, 2007, Windsor Star

TORONTO - One senior executive was fired and another stripped of his title Tuesday as the fallout from a scandal involving
allegations of fraud and suspicious insider wins at Ontario’s lottery corporation widened.

Michelle DiEmanuele, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s interim chief executive, announced the changes Tuesday afternoon.

Ingrid Peters, the OLG’s vice- president, general counsel, legal and compliance, was fired after eight years with the company. She earned more than $267,000 in 2006, according to documents of the province’s top public sector earners.

“On behalf of the Corporation, I would like to thank Ingrid for her years of service with OLG,” DiEmanuele writes in the terse, four-paragraph note.

In another move, Walter Fioravanti was removed from his position as vice-president of human resources but will remain with the company. He earned approximately $251,000 in 2006, according to public documents.

Insiders say the shuffle — which brings to four the number of executive casualties stemming from the scandal — was in the works for weeks.

Peters and Fioravanti join Duncan Brown, the company’s former chief executive officer, and Alan Berdowski, the company’s former chief marketing officer, as casualties of a scandal exposing rampant incompetence at the provincial lottery corporation.

continued ….

Gambler’s self-ban system ‘built on quicksand’

Author:
Source: CBC News
Published: Jun 01, 07

Full Document:
ONTARIO, CANADA — Thousands of gambling addicts have signed agreements with Ontario’s gaming agency asking to be barred from casinos and slot parlours, but critics say the system is full of holes that let addicts easily slip back into the gaming sites.
The photos of 10,000 problem gamblers who have signed up for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.’s so-called “self-exclusion” program fill 22 binders.

Security guards at the province’s gambling facilities are expected to commit each face to memory, then charge those gamblers with trespassing if they’re found in the facility.

But security guards say it’s an impossible task and lawyers for clients who have sued the agency call it a “system based on quicksand.”

Under the self-exclusion program, addicts who realize they have a problem sign an agreement asking to be banned from entering Ontario gaming sites. But the detailed form also includes a section releasing the OLG from any responsibility and future lawsuits.

Some security staff members, who asked to not be named, said they have documented the problems for years and even written to superiors complaining the current system is failing and that it’s impossible to remember all the faces.

OLG argues it’s ultimately the responsibility of the individual to stay away from the gambling facilities, pointing out the agreement is voluntary.

“The onus is on you on a voluntary basis to stay out of our casino,” said OLG spokesman Jim Cronin.

That hasn’t stopped nine people, including Joseph Treyes, from suing the OLG in the past 10 years.

Treyes, a 61-year-old Mississauga man suffering from Parkinson’s disease, sought out therapy, counselling and even went off medication he said was contributing to his addiction before he finally gave in and signed a self-exclusion agreement.

Treyes said he was well-known to the staff at Woodbine Racetrack and easily identifiable because of his walker. Yet, in hundreds of visits between September 2000, when he signed the self-exclusion agreement, and February 2007, he claimed staff only stopped him once.

“They knew me because I was always there, every day,” Treyes told the CBC a number of months ago. “It was easy to go back. Nobody stopped me.”

Ontario’s casinos use facial recognition technology to alert them to cheaters, but have chosen not to use it with the self-exclusion program.

Treyes’s lawyer, Hassan Fancy questioned the use of such a flawed memory-based system. “That’s a system that is based on quicksand,” he said. “That’s a system you can’t expect to work.”

Treyes was handed a settlement about a month ago. The OLG has settled all nine cases, for a total of $1.5 million. It wouldn’t comment on the amount in Treyes case, citing a strict confidentiality agreement the two sides signed. Treyes and Fancy spoke to the CBC some months before signing the settlement and confidentiality deal.

In fact, a lawyer hired by Ontario’s Problem Gambling Research Centre to study the OLG’s legal obligations said the settlements raise the question of whether the gaming agency is trying to keep the courts from establishing a consistent rule as to the agency’s responsibilities.

“By acknowledging you have a problem and putting the casino on notice that you have such a problem … certainly some of the responsibility would appear to fall on the shoulders on the gaming facility and by extension the OLG,” said Jasminka Kalajdzic.

Report finds retailer-wins high, security low, By DAVID JACKSON Halifax Herald Provincial Reporter, Tuesday June 5, 2007

The Atlantic Lottery Corp.’s president seems to be on solid ground for now, though her counterpart in British Columbia is gone after a scathing report on a lack of lottery security.

Stirling (Ginger) Breedon, chairman of Atlantic Lotto’s board of directors, said Monday the board hasn’t discussed whether president and CEO Michelle Carinci should keep her job in light of the higher-than-probable rate of retailer wins and lax security dating back to 2001, as found in recent reviews.

“We believe we need to fix the things that need to be done, both technically and in terms of policies and processes, and we’re working with the team we have in place to do that, so that’s where we’re at,” said Mr. Breedon.

“She’s doing exactly what the board wants her to do in terms of moving forward on all the recommendations and putting into place the things that will ensure our players have their just prizes when they win. That’s our interest.”

The British Columbia Lottery Corp. fired its president and CEO last Friday, just days after the province’s ombudsman released a report showing retailers were winning too often and that corporation officials weren’t doing enough to find out why.

….

The Atlantic Lotto board had commissioned an audit of the corporation after an internal review released in March found that retailers won prizes of at least $25,000 at a rate 10 times higher than probabilities said they should have.

The audit by KPMG Forensic showed even more retailers won big prizes. It also found eight retailers had their selling privileges revoked but some were later reinstated.

The corporation has given files on retailers’ wins to police. In all, 85 retailers and their employees won a total of $14 million.

….

Two more reviews of Atlantic Lotto are coming, one initiated by the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Labour and another by agencies that are shareholders in the corporation on behalf of the four Atlantic provinces. Atlantic ombudsmen also plan to monitor steps the corporation takes to fix the problems.

Lottery corporations across the country have undergone internal and external reviews since CBC TV’s The Fifth Estate aired a story last fall about an elderly Ontario man cheated out of his winning lottery ticket, and high rates of retailer wins in that province.

Ontario’s ombudsman released a report in March that concluded the province’s lottery corporation was “fixated on profit rather than public service.” The president and CEO of Ontario Lottery and Gaming resigned just prior to the report’s release.

( djackson@herald.ca)

© 2007 The Halifax Herald Limited

Michael Smyth, The Province

Published: Sunday, June 03, 2007

The people who run the government’s $2-billion gambling business became aware five years ago that lottery players might be getting ripped off by dishonest ticket sellers.

You might be wondering: Why on earth didn’t they do something about it? After all, the whole scandalous episode cost the top gambling guy his $442,000-a-year job last week.

But, hey, let’s cut them some slack. After all, this hard-bitten vice-squad had bigger fish to fry.

Who cares about a few crooked retailers swiping lottery jackpots when the gamblin’ grannies of Galiano Island were on the loose?

In 2005, the B.C. Gaming and Enforcement Branch were tipped off to an illicit gambling den operating on the idyllic Gulf island.

About a dozen little old ladies were gathering once a week at McKechnie’s Grand Central Emporium to drink tea, eat homemade pie and play bingo — without the $1.50 licence!

The government’s flying squad swept into action.

Four undercover agents were dispatched to the island, where they booked into a five-star waterfront B&B locally renowned for its luxurious down quilts and gazebo hot tub.

Cleverly posing as visiting real-estate buyers, they penetrated the tea shop and watched the elderly degenerates feed their filthy unlicensed bingo habit.

The next day, after a delicious organic breakfast, they confronted the owner of the emporium, reduced her to tears and slapped her with a $288 fine.

Rich Coleman, then the solicitor-general, was asked whether the four-man sting operation was an insane example of bureaucratic overkill and an unbelieveable waste of taxpayers’ money.

“The law is the law,” the grim-faced top cop replied.

Beware, you gambling grannies. Lottery retailers might be stealing your winning tickets from under your noses, but try to play bingo without a licence in this province and they’ll come down on you like Miami Vice.

I remind you of this bizarre little episode to illustrate the government’s total dysfunction when it comes to policing gambling.

The B.C. Gaming and Enforcement Branch is the same outfit that issued a misleading, error-riddled report last fall saying everything was fine with the province’s lottery-retailing system.

That didn’t satisfy B.C. Ombudsman Kim Carter, who issued last week’s devastating report revealing that the system is wide open to theft and fraud by unscrupulous ticket sellers.

The bottom line: Firing lottery chief Vic Poleschuk was the correct move — though at first defending him and then letting him twist in the wind all week shows just how dazed and confused these people are.

To restore confidence, more heads must roll. The B.C. Lotteries board should be fired, too, and then the granny-hunting enforcement branch should be cleaned out and overhauled.

Anything less would show the government cares more about its own soaring gambling profits than protecting players being fleeced of their winnings.

And even my own bingo-loving granny would say that’s just not right.

Listen to Nightline B.C. with Michael Smyth every weeknight at 7 p.m. on CKNW, AM 980 E-mail: msmyth@direct.ca

© The Vancouver Province 2007

© 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.

Letter, Saturday, June 02, 2007, Vancouver Sun

Part of the problem with the B.C. Lottery Corp. is the people running it: Fire the top echelon and start over.

Take a tip from Australia. There, you can buy a registration card, which, when presented with your lottery submission, will register the ticket(s) in your name only. This costs $2 a year. Further, if your ticket is a winner and has not been claimed within two weeks, a cheque for the winning amount will be sent to you at the address on your registration card. So tickets lost, stolen or put through the washing machine are no longer a worry.

I lived in Western Australia for quite a few years, and I would occasionally get a cheque in the mail for a winning ticket that I thought I had checked, but obviously hadn’t.

Barry MacKay, Tahsis

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

© 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.