Getting lucky in Manitoba

Imagine you’ve just one $1 million and you never see a penny of it. This is exactly was continues to happen....well in Ontario anyway. The issue of lotto dealers “getting lucky” at an exceptionally high rate does not seem to be going away. According to the Ontario Ombudsman "despite all the measures, despite the publicity, despite the denunciations, insider fraud still happens". It’s so bad that the Ontario Lotteries Corporation is even considering banning retailers, OLG employees and family members from buying lottery products. A similar issue was also reported in B.C.

UPDATE: The OLG has banned their employees from buying lotto tickets. Too bad it's the retailers that are the problem.

And what about Manitoba?

The Western Canada Lottery Corporation asked Ernst & Young to do an audit in 2007 and they found absolutely nothing. “The report was thorough and found that the Corporations consumer protection measures were strong, that there was no evidence of wrongdoing in retailer-win files (…)” (WCLC 2008 annual report).

Why are there so many crooked retailers only one province away while everything is hunky-dory in Manitoba? Are retailers in Manitoba more honest than in Ontario? Are there better procedures in Manitoba? Nope, they pretty much follow the same rules. Is this likely also happening in Manitoba? I would put money on it.

I think WCLC might want to take another look at this issue…