Atlantic Lotto checking fraud complaints

Nov 14, 2006, 10:21 am (Post a comment)

Atlantic Lottery Corporation

Atlantic Lottery Corporation is investigating several complaints from customers who are worried they may have been defrauded of lottery winnings by retailers.

The customers are concerned they might have won big prizes, but weren't told by the retailers checking the tickets, who then went on to claim the prizes as their own. Atlantic Lotto said it received the complaints in the days following reports on the CBC about similar incidents in Ontario and the United States.

"We did get a lot of calls in the few days after," ALC public affairs specialist Robert Bourgeois told CBC News.

"People [are] complaining they may have been victimized by a retailer or something like that. We would have gotten about 20 of those calls."

Following reports on The Fifth Estate of fraud elsewhere, and inconceivably high rates of winning by retailers in Ontario, ALC told the CBC it had never received a complaint, and it considered its system foolproof.

Bourgeois said the complaints received since then have been turned over to Atlantic Lottery's security department for investigation. It is also planning changes to its equipment.

"In the next week or two our ticket checkers that we have in place will begin to show the amount won by players. Up until now they only said if the ticket was a winning ticket or a non-winning ticket," he said.

Currently, players have to rely on a retailer to tell them how much they've won.

Atlantic Lotto has also sent all of its retailers letters reminding them to provide players with a validation ticket and to encourage customers to sign the backs of their tickets.

CBC News

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