BC Lottery Mulls Tighter Watch on Retailers

Canada's BC Lottery Corp. may introduce a player card system in an effort to further address the issue of lottery retailer fraud, insisting at the same time, however, that lottery retailers are no more likely to win major prizes today than the public.

The proposed card would be swiped by the retailer at the point of sale, and would record the player's ticket purchase and allow winnings to be directly deposited into his/her bank account.

The card idea comes in the wake of an investigation last year that revealed that some lottery retailers in the province appeared to be winning unusually frequently, with one claiming over 300,000 Canadian dollars in prizes from 11 wins in five years. In total, 21 BC Lottery Corp. retailers or employees emerged as multiple winners.

Unexplained drop
BC Lottery Corp. insists meanwhile that today, following the implementation of various security measures approximately a year ago, ticket retailers do not win more than the public. The corporation, however, was unable to explain what appears to be a dramatic drop in retailer wins since the new measures, such as banning retailers from buying or validating tickets at their own terminal and investigating all retailer wins larger than $3,000, were put into place.

In 2006, BCLC released data showing retailers had claimed 4.41 percent of all prizes over $10,000 since April 2000. A recount subsequently raised this win rate to almost 4.9 percent - more than four times the 1.09 percent figure released recently for wins over $1,000 between August 2007 and March 2008.

"The [current] win rates are statistically within line of the general population," BCLC president Michael Graydon said on the release of the recent figures.

"Each retail business has an element of fraud. We're the same way. We're never going to eliminate it all," Graydon admitted, adding, however, that he was confident that the corporation now had the measures in place to make fraud less likely.