Shhh! We have a winner (TheChronicleHerald.ca)
Shhh! We have a winner Lotto Corp. didn't say pot went to retailer By DAVID JACKSON Provincial Reporter Thu. Jan 10 - 5:15 AM From 2001 to 2006, retailers won Atlantic Lottery Corp. jackpots 19 times more often than statistically expected. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff) Photo illustration by VINCE WALSH / Staff The Atlantic Lottery Corp. hid the fact that one of its 2005 winners was a retailer because of concerns over news of retailer fraud in Ontario. Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request show that lottery corporation officials were jittery about releasing details of a Newfoundland and Labrador retailer's $25,000 Keno win because of a newspaper story about Ontario resident Bob Edmonds getting cheated out of a big win by a retailer. "There wasn't a release issued to the media," reads a note attached to the Keno winner's file. "(Blanked out) is a retailer and there was a story in the Globe and Mail on a retailer in Ontario that defrauded a player and claimed the winning lottery ticket as their own. The timing was not right to issue this release." Besides the retailer's name, the date on a form the winner signed is also blanked out. The corporation cited privacy concerns. Other media releases about winners at that time regularly said that retailers, if they were winners, had bought the tickets from their own stores. The file indicates a short release about the win was posted on the Atlantic Lottery Corp. website, but there was no mention of the winner being a retailer. That failure to disclose came more than a year before Mr. Edmonds's experience was the subject of a television documentary in October 2006. The story prompted intense scrutiny of retailer wins and lottery practices across the country. In Atlantic Canada, a statistician found that Nova Scotia retailers won prizes of at least $25,000 at an almost impossibly high rate. From 2001 to 2006, they won 19 times more than statistically expected, and Jeffrey Rosenthal, a professor at the University of Toronto, calculated the chances of that happening by pure luck alone at less than one in two hundred million trillion. In Atlantic Canada as a whole, another statistician found that retailers won 10 times more than the probabilities would suggest they should have. Atlantic Lottery officials say they intend to do another statistical review of retailer wins. Liberal gaming critic Leo Glavine said the "selective disclosure" in 2005 was symptomatic of the problems at the lottery corporation. He said officials acknowledging the problem of the retailer fraud in Ontario should have examined retailer wins in Atlantic Canada right then. He said the responsibility goes right to the top of the corporation, and that's why he has said CEO Michelle Carinci should be fired. "We see now a history of very sloppy, incomplete and ineffective work from the administrative head of ALC," Mr. Glavine said. New Democrat critic Howard Epstein said it was "nonsensical and offensive" to say the timing wasn't right to release information about the retailer. "It's consistent, not just with being lackadaisical, but with shying away from being open with the public, and that's simply wrong," Mr. Epstein said. He said it also shows again how Atlantic Lottery and the governments that own it were slow to react to potential problems with retailer wins. Mike Randall, Atlantic Lottery's vice-president of social responsibility and communications, said the news release in question predates him. Staff who would have been responsible at the time have moved on to other jobs, he said. Mr. Randall said he wouldn't have made the call to withhold information about a retailer winning. "I think it's probably bad advice, or a bad decision that certainly wouldn't be made under my watch," he said Wednesday. "I think that people were probably thinking of the retailer and not putting them through undue stress." The file is one of dozens released under an information request for winners' files and news releases, as well as files of the corporation's investigations. The lottery corporation released only the files for New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. Police looked at the files related to retailer wins in those provinces and found nothing amiss in most of them. They were still reviewing four New Brunswick files when the corporation released the other documents. RCMP in Nova Scotia are still looking at the files for this province, which include 56 customer complaints about retailer practices and 35 suspicious retailer wins. The lottery corporation has promised to release what information it can when the investigation is finished. News reports in October 2006 about the number of retailer wins in Ontario led to an analysis in Atlantic Canada and to Atlantic Lottery hiring KPMG Forensic Inc. last year to review retailer wins. KPMG criticized the lottery corporation's record-keeping and investigations. The files released under the freedom of information request have sections blacked out but seem to support that conclusion. In one case, staff closed a file after several unsuccessful attempts to reach a retailer and a customer. In another file, a staff member referred to a complainant in an e-mail as a "loonie tune." Many files dealt with complaints about a relatively small amount of money, such as $2 or $10. In 2003, a man who won $10 suspected he may actually have won $100,000. He was suspicious of how the clerk looked at him, the file said, plus he contacted a fortune teller who told him he'd won a large amount of money. Atlantic Lottery has said it's following all the recommendations in the KPMG report to tighten up its controls. The steps it has taken include more thorough investigations, a more detailed winners' database and background checks for new retailers. It's also encouraging lotto players to sign their tickets. The corporation blacked out names of winners in the news releases it sent in response to the freedom of information request. The corporation's policy is to publicize the names for up to a year, the longest term in the country, Mr. Randall said. Lottery officials are considering shortening that length of time, he said. He said they have to balance marketing efforts with a person's right to privacy, which can take a hit after a big lottery win. Darce Fardy, president of the Right to Know Coalition of Nova Scotia, said he finds it strange that parts of news releases would be withheld, considering they were public in the past. Inserted from <http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1010110.html>
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