Category: lottery

After charging three members of an Ottawa family with claiming a lottery win that wasn’t theirs, authorities are searching for the rightful winner of a $12.5 million jackpot … from 2003.

As Ontario Provincial Police announced Tuesday that they had arrested and charged Kathleen Chung, 29, Kenneth Chung, 28, and Jun-Chul Chung, 60, for illegally claiming the $12.5 million, Ottawa Lottery and Gaming (OLG) stated its confidence in a system which may help it find the heretofore anonymous actual winner.

Said winner validated a winning “Super 7” ticket at a Burlington store where father Jun-Chul and Kenneth worked. This ticket resulted in a free ticket which was the lucky winner of the draw. The Super 7 winner never receiving the free ticket that was rightfully theirs and Kenneth’s wife Kathleen claimed the win in 2004.

The case has actually been under investigation since 2006, and Ottawa police are now in process of seizing $10 million in property and cash, including the Chungs’ purchase of two homes, five luxury vehicles, and three properties. The three were released on $700,000 bail.

OLG chairman Paul Godfrey told Canadian media that “if someone can come in and tell us everything we already know about the ticket, down to the last detail, there’s a good chance we’re looking at the rightful owner.”

Police have stated that they know the original ticket was purchased in St. Catharines and that the number of tickets purchased along with the fateful winner may indicate that the purchase was a group play.

A pair of huge draws on the weekend resulted in the proverbial “life-changing wins,” as the Powerball and Mega Millions lottery jackpots were each hit by a single player – though neither has stepped forward to claim the prize.

On Friday night, the Mega Millions numbers were drawn on a $54 million jackpot. Numbers 3, 4, 14, 18, 27 and 13 came up to make one lucky citizen of New York City very happy – if he/she is even aware of the win. The jackpot was reset and, with no winner in yesterday’s draw, the September 24 jackpot is estimated to be at $16 million.

Over the weekend, the turgid Powerball jackpot stood at a big $116 million before a customer of Heby’s Shell gas station in Mableton, Georgia, chose the winning numbers 1, 18, 37, 39, 44 and 13 – making the key final numbers in both draws a lucky 13, incidentally – but he/she, too, has yet to come forward and claim the prize as of Wednesday morning.

Heby’s Shell will be receiving a $25,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket and, should the player claim his/her winnings as a cash option, the ticket will be worth a tidy $63 million before taxes. The winner has 180 days to claim the big prize.

The last occasion on which a Georgia player won the Mega Millions jackpot was just over a year ago, with a $12 million payout going to a Sharpsburg man on September 1st of 2009.

For the third time in five months, an Australian has hit an eight-figure jackpot in the national Oz Lotto and hasn’t come forward to collect the winnings. NSW Lotteries is therefore once again appealing through media channels for players to check their tickets again, for they could easily be sitting on about $20 million ($18.73 million).

What is known is that the winning ticket was bought in Sydney somewhere in the northwest of the city. Further details were not to be released so that, as NSW Lotteries spokeswoman Una O’Neill explained, “the winner [may] check their entry without the glare of publicity.”

Though the deadline for collecting on this ticket would be December 1, 2016, multi-million winners rarely wait for longer than a day or two – except, of course, in Australia lately, where folks’ overlooking winning lottery tickets has become a bit endemic.

In July, another Sydney resident took $40 million ($37.46 million) in the Oz Lottery, but only after a similar public call by NSW Lotteries. And in April, several days passed before a middle-aged couple in Ashfield rechecked their ticket to find they’d bagged $30 million ($28 million).
So, again, if you’re in Sydney, check those tickets!

A mystery man has just won a $30 million dollar jackpot in Taiwan’s national lottery, just hours after one lotto stand’s oracle octopus predicted that the next big winner would be a male.

The Taiwan Lottery Company has so far revealed that the winner is a man from eastern Taitung county, but they won’t say much else. The man collected his winnings quietly, and is trying to keep out of the spotlight.

As for the oracle octopus, it might have just been a lucky guess, but according to the Taiwan Lottery Company, most winners in the country have in fact been men. Based on a sample study of 1,400 pst winners, the lotto group has put together a very detailed picture of the average Taiwanese lottery winner, all the way down to details such as “large earlobes”.

“The latest winner also has an oval face, double-eyelids and a high nose,” predicted Huang Chi Yi, General Manager of Taiwan Lottery Company. These features describe the majority of the company’s big winners, who tend to be between 40 and 59 with generous souls who were born in the Chinese year of the Goat.

This $30 million lottery prize is the largest jackpots every paid out to a single winner in Taiwan. The store that sold the winning ticket has been buzzing with activity ever since the win was announced, with many visitors having their picture taken in front of the store in hopes of catching some ambient luck.

In reportage on lotteries and gambling, we often use the expression “life-changing” to describe the huge wins of which all players dream – but when you’re low enough to be living without running water in your broken down home, those words are at their truest.

FOX News in Chicago last night revisited the story of Jim Gatze for its television audience; Gatze hit the Illinois State Lottery jackpot back in 2003 for $5.5 milllion but became famously lucky as the guy who almost did get paid his jackpot. Gatze bought a ticket at a Calumet Park gas station, but when he went to cash in the winning ticket at a state lottery commission office, he was refused.

First he was mistaken for a homeless man and was not believed when he presented his driver’s license to officials. Apparently, Gatze hadn’t bathed in nine months at that point. He told FOX, “I didn’t have water in the house for about a year and a half. No heat for six months. No phone for a year and a half.”

Enlisting the help of a friend who hired legal assistance and brought a suit against the state for refusal to pay, Gatze ended up collecting his millions in 26 installments of $151,920 each after taxes – but he still doesn’t have a phone.

Gatze today lives in a hotel for $250 a week and uses pay telephones. He has bought three new cars since winning the lottery, his latest a Mazda 3. He keeps his money in a savings account which earns 3% interest at the local bank and is devoted to feeding a dozen or so cats which live in a nearby junkyard.

When he was down on his luck, says Gatze, the cats “were compassionate and all like that, but people always looked down on me. That’s what’s wrong with this world today. People are not as compassionate as animals.”

Magistrate W. Randy Smith, 63 years old, cancelled a scheduled vacation when he heard he’d won the jackpot in favor of his incipient extended holiday thanks to the eight-figure payout. Smith made his intention to step down from the bench, a position he was elected to in 2008, known in a fax to his boss, judicial circuit chief judge David H. Sanders.

Smith served as Berkeley County deputy sheriff for 12 years and as county sheriff for eight before the 2008 election.

In an interview with local media, Smith explained that he didn’t want his employees to be “left holding the bag” and that he would “certainly miss the people that I’ve met and worked with over the years. … I’ve just always enjoyed public service, [and] it has been rewarding to be able to help people.”

Smith said he planned to financially assist some family members with his prize, buy a new car and take a vacation overseas. After taking the “cash option” and figuring for taxes, Smith’s winnings amounted to about $30 million. The winning numbers were 07, 10, 12, 22, 27, and powerball 26.

The magistrate’s last day on the job will be September 6.

Odds of 176 million to 1 were beat this weekend in San Luis Obispo County, California, when the Mega Millions jackpot of $133 million was won by … someone. The numbers 4, 10, 26, 31, 32, and 41 came up to produce a single winner of the record-breaking amount, but no one has stepped forward to claim the prize yet.

Though the $133 million is not the largest prize in the lottery ever – that honor goes to a woman from Southern California who took a $266 million jackpot in May – the win is the biggest ever in San Luis Obispo County.

Seller of the lucky ticket, an outlet known as Bottle Liquor and Deli, will receive a nice bonus of $665,000 for the win. The ticket-holder will be given the option of $92.4 million lump sum payment or payments of $5.11 million per year for 26 years.

California lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said that the winner may take up to 365 days to collect but “rarely do we have a jackpot winner [of a prize] this size wait more than a week.”

When Frank Sullivan hit the Tri-State Megabucks lottery sponsored by Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire state governments for $12.5 million, he knew exactly what to do – no wonder, as twice before family members have struck it rich.

The $12.5 million represents the largest single prize ever rewarded in the Tri-State Megabucks lottery since its establishment in 1985. The bad (though certainly manageable) news for Sullivan is that, since he’s a Vermont native who bought the ticket across the border in New Hampshire, he’ll be paying taxes on his winnings in two states. In taking the “lump sum” option, Sullivan will be banking over $5 million.

According to local media, one of the very first things the 52-year-old did – even before stepping up to claim his prize – was to give two weeks’ notice at his job at a local electronics supplier. He now reportedly carries around lip balm “for people that want money – They’ve gotta kiss up a little bit more” and a black book “for the marriage proposals.”

The store in Gilman where Sullivan bought the ticket will also be receiving $30,000 for selling the lucky jackpot winner.

NECN Online also reports that Sullivan had purchased tickets for last night’s Megabucks drawing – presumably he didn’t win that one, however…

Director Erik White’s new film Lottery Ticket is, unsurprisingly, a movie about a young man who wins the lottery. It is a comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and judging by the reviews that are popping up from film critics, nobody else is taking it very seriously either.

Lottery Ticket stars rapper Bow Wow as Kevin Carson, a young man living in the projects with his grandmother, whose life takes a turn when he wins a $370 million lottery prize. When he tries to cash in his winning ticket, he finds the lottery office closed for a long 4th of July holiday weekend. The movie follows his misadventures as he struggles to survive three days of begging and bantering from his friends and family, who are all eager to grab a slice of his new jackpot prize.

It’s an easy movie, slightly charming, but overall it’s not a very satisfying ride. Its all-star cast (Mike Epps, T-Pain, Keith David, Charlie Murphy, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Terry Crews, Ice Cube and Loretta Devine) offers a lot of great cameos which spices things up, but these brighter moments don’t keep the story from being utterly predictable. Is this Lottery Ticket worth the $9 it costs to see it in the cinema? Probably not.

Four winners shared in this weekend’s UK national lottery jackpot grand prize of £4.47 million, but none were as openly generous – or as young – as Stacey Bywater of Holmfirth, England. Stacey, who is 18 years old, was allowed by her parents to play the lottery after her last birthday, even though U.K. law says that anyone over 16 may win.

Bywater’s share ended up being exactly £1,117,779 (about $1.75 million), but British media is happily reporting that Stacey has level-headed plans for the money. First she says she’d like to help her mother and father get a bigger home, moving out of the council house they’re residing in now. She’ll at least be putting down the deposit on a mortgage for a new house.

Afterward, Stacey said she’d be buying herself a Mini Cooper convertible and perhaps a living space – but only for rent. “I’m only 18 and I don’t want to leave them yet,” she told local media outlets. “I don’t think it has sunk in that I’m a millionaire.”

The winning numbers chosen by Stacey and three others were 13, 16, 22, 25, 31 and 39. The total prize pool for last Saturday’s draw was over £14 million ($22 million).

A Shanghai resident won the lottery just days ago, claiming a 259 million yuan jackpot ($38 million USD). This is the second largest lottery win ever recorded in China.

The ticket, purchased at a lottery booth in Dalian Road, Yangpu District, was for a game from the China Welfare Lottery called Union Lotto, sometimes known as the two-colored ball game. Each ticket offers up to 55 top prizes and many more secondary prizes. The winner grabbed 50 out of the 55 top prizes, each one worth five million yuan (about $740,000 USD). An additional six million yuan ($885,600 USD) was won through secondary prizes.

The winner, whose identity has yet to be released, will have to pay approximately 20 percent of the winnings as tax.

The Union Lotto is a progressive jackpot, so it keeps growing week after week if there is no winner. Last year, a player from China’s Henan Province won 359.9 million yuan, the largest lottery jackpot the country has ever seen.

In what South African National Lottery spokeswoman Thembi Tulwana is calling “another dream come true,” a 66-year-old man from Gauteng province has been awarded Saturday’s grand prize ZAR 10 million (about $1.38 million).

When claiming the prize, the man thought he had won a “second-division prize” in the lottery worth just under $15,000. Instead he found out he actually one the big one when rechecking the numbers. His reaction: “Unable to contain his disbelief, he broke down and cried hysterically,” according to representatives of Gidani, the Greece-based company running the lottery.

They went on to state that “He then called his wife of 43 years, whom he trusts entirely, to share the news.”

Though on the face of it, the grand prize doesn’t seem that huge, it’s quite an amazing windfall in a country where, as Wikipedia informs, “The median annual income of Black working adults aged 15-65 is ZAR 12,073 [$1,665].”

Once the man composed himself a bit, he told lottery officials that this prize meant financial independence, plus the opportunity to buy property for himself and his family’s caretaker, and possibly travel. “We will now be able to do things sooner rather than having to wait until we can afford to buy what we like,” he said.

The South African National Lottery started in 2000 and is today overwhelmingly the most popular form of gambling in the country: A study by the National Centre for the Study of Gambling in 2006 showed that 82% of citizens played the lottery and 53% did no other form of gambling.

When people talk about “life-changing” multi-million prizes in lottery draws, they’re definitely visualizing Elizabeth’s Choras-Hanna’s win of the Powerball Jackpot Prize in July.

Thirty-five year-old Choras-Hanna, who is currently an unemployed medical assistant, will presumably be toning down the job search a bit after claiming her $73.8 million win on Friday. Residing in Hollywood, Florida, Choras-Hanna becomes the state’s second-ever Powerball winner. Opting for a one-time payment rather than installments, Choras-Hanna collected $38,929,055.11 for the winning ticket.

The winning numbers were 20, 21, 27, 28, 56 and Powerball number 4.

“[My sister and I] always go grocery shopping at Publix together, and before we leave we buy one Florida Lotto and one Powerball Quick Pick ticket,” Choras-Hanna said. “The next day, I went to another Publix and had them check my tickets and discovered our ticket was the jackpot winner.”

Choras-Hanna will be sharing the winnings with her sister and her sister’s husband. Though the draw was actually held on July 10, Choras-Hanna said she waited to collect the prize while she and her family “got their affairs in order first.”

In last Friday’s draw, a single winner from Louisiana bought a ticket with a progressive jackpot worth $85.7 million; this winner has yet to claim the prize. The winning numbers were 1, 16, 17, 41, 57 and Powerball 15.

Canada Lottery Commission (BCLC) has been in the news a lot recently after a technical error with their new online gambling site left the accounts of 200 players compromised. The site is still down, and the Commission has been left struggling to get back to its feet.

Meanwhile in the offline world, casino-goer Adrian MacNair is launching a lawsuit against the Canada Lottery Commission after they refused to pay him a $40,000 jackpot he won at one of their casinos.

Canada Lottery Commission

The problem is that three years ago, MacNair voluntarily listed himself as a “problem gambler” and enrolled in the self-excluding program. Under the program, casino security was supposed to ask him to leave once his ID was matched to a list of participants, but the casinos took no action, so MacNair continued to play.

It was only when he hit a $40,000 jackpot on a slot machine at Cowichan casino back in January that the BCLC finally stepped into action – by refusing to pay him the winnings.

MacNair is now suing the casino. He feels that if the casino let him play and lose money, they should also let him play and win money. This will be the second such lawsuit against the BCLC in recent months – earlier this year a woman sued the Canada Lottery Commission after losing several hundred thousand dollars because the casinos failed to stop her from gambling after she enrolled in the self-exclusion program.

Imagine you just won a £7.7 million ($11.7 million) in a national lottery. What would be the first thing you did? Surely a minority would answer, “Immediately get back to work,” but that’s precisely what Ivan Westbury did after receiving the life-changing news last Sunday.

Westbury’s wife of 21 years, Susan, was at a local Tesco checking on her lottery ticket. Susan attracted a bit of attention as she had the ticket scanned by a cashier, who informed her they’d have to call the lottery commission for more information. The information imparted was that, yes, the Westburys had won £7,706,631 in the U.K. lottery – at which, Susan said, “I nearly passed out.”

Susan called her husband, who joined her at the store after leaving his lightning-protection business. The two whooped it up for a bit, but within the hour Ivan was back at work. In explaining his actions, the self-professed workaholic was quoted as saying, “I’ve got a passion about work [...] and I just love what I do. I suppose you could call it sad but I haven’t had a day off for four years.”

The Westburys will now take that vacation, though it was planned before the couple bought the lottery ticket: They’ll be taking a day trip to Cornwall.

In hoping to celebrate their win that evening, the Westburys ironically found that they couldn’t afford to pay for some pub drinks in cash.

The couple has stated that they’ll be doing “normal lottery things” by making a few major purchases in addition to giving their children and grandchildren some money – and they’ll be leaving the business open.

For most people, winning a nearly $15 million lottery progressive jackpot would be the ultimate sign of good luck – but not a recent record-setting winner in Taiwan. Fearing “she would meet the same sorry fate as [lottery] winners in foreign countries she read about,” a woman in Taipei City waited nearly two months before finally deciding to step forward and claim her prize.

On April 8, a NT$480 million ($14.93 million) jackpot had been accumulated. After the draw, the Taiwan Lottery commission announced that a single winner in Taipei City had taken the big prize. But at home, that ticket buyer was simply in shock.

According to the Taiwanese official news agency, the winner’s “mind went blank for more than ten minutes after learning that she had won.” She could not sleep the night after finding out the news and in following days read a number of stories about multi-million dollar lottery winners going broke or meeting terrible fates after their jackpot wins.

Ultimately, the woman and her husband decided to claim the money after all – At 55 days past the draw, this was easily the Taiwanese record for the longest such period of time. After taxes, the prize will be worth about $11.95 million. The couple also stated that they would immediately be donating NT$1 million ($31,100) to charity.

An unnamed Floridan who purchased a ticket in Royal Palm Beach became the seventh winner of the nationwide Powerball lottery jackpot in 2010 when he or she matched all six numbers drawn to win the $73.9 million grand prize last Saturday.

The winning numbers were 20, 21, 27, 28, 56 and powerball 4, and the winner has 180 days to claim the prize. The Florida Lottery commission announced that the $73.9 million represents the third-large prize ever won in a Florida game and is the second Powerball jackpot awarded to a Floridian.

Since joining the game in January 2009, Florida has recorded more Powerball winners than any other state, paying out over $289 million in prizes to the lucky folks. The Powerball lottery is now played in 42 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and the Virgin Islands.

Three times in 2010, the Powerball jackpot has gone over $200 million; the year’s top winner so far is Chris Shaw of Missouri, who won $258.5 million in April. An unknown winner in Ohio enjoyed a $261.6 million windfall on June 2, while Sandra McNeil of New Jersey scored $211.7 million in March.

Other Powerball progressive jackpots won this year include the $141 million won by Frank Griffin of North Carolina in February; the $96.9 million shared by a pair of friends in Montana and an auto workers’ group in Michigan and Ohio on June 23; and an anonymous player in Arkansas, who won $25 million on January 2.

Powerball closed year 2009 holding onto a $128.6 payout that went unclaimed by whoever purchased the winning ticket in Kentucky.

One of this week’s top gambling news stories is about a Joan Ginther, a 63 year old Texan who is a very, very lucky woman. Just a few days ago, she spent $50 on a scratch card lottery ticket, and ended up winning a very impressive $10 million jackpot. She was happy, but she might not have been very surprised.

While most lottery players would be grateful to win such a large jackpot, for Ms Ginther, it is becoming a regular occurrence. This recent win is in fact the fourth seven-figure lottery jackpot she has won in the last 20 years.

Her first big win came back in 1993 when she won $5.4 million. After a long break, she won again in 2006, turning a $30 scratchie ticket into $3 million. Two year later, in 2008, Ms Ginther won for the third time, taking another $3 million from a lottery scratch ticket. Her latest win pushes her total lottery jackpot winnings to a massive $20.4 million.

Ms Ginther has not given any interviews, and is shunning the worldwide publicity that her luck has brought her. It is not known how she intends to spend the largest lottery jackpot she has won so far.

Lotteries are popular all around the world, but their prizes are usually limited to a particular state or a particular country. An alternative global jackpot system can be found online. They are called progressive jackpot games, and they can be played at most online casinos.

Progressive jackpots games, like major lotteries, are capable of paying out in the millions. These jackpots grow bigger as more players enjoy the games, since a small portion of each player’s wager is added to the prize. These progressive jackpots are tough to win, but the payouts can be life-changing.

In 2001, a class-action suit was filed against Loto-Québec. The suit was filed on behalf of 120,000 Quebecers who were seeking damages, claiming that Video Lottery Terminals operated by the group had led to addiction. An out-of-court settlement has finally been reached, with Loto-Québec agreeing to pay for addiction therapy expenses incurred between 1994 and 2002.

CBC News: Loto-Québec to pay for gamblers’ therapy

A class action suit launched in 2001 against Loto-Québec by addicted gamblers has come to a head. Loto-Québec must now pay for addiction therapy treatments for thousands of compulsive gamblers in the province, after the old suit was settled out of court.

The multimillion-dollar settlement was approved by the multimillion-dollar on Tuesday. Loto-Québec has agreed to pay for gamblers’ addiction therapy expenses incurred between 1994 and 2002, to an average of about $5,000 per claimant. The lawsuit will cost the gambling company estimated $50 million as they pay out to about 120,000 claimants in Quebec.

Sol Boxenbaum, an advocate of responsible gambling, said that the settlement falls short because it doesn’t establish any significant legal precedent that will help control problem gamblers.

“We had established that video lottery terminals had addictive features built right into them. In the settlement, the lawyers agreed that the machine does not cause the addiction. So, in other words, we have thrown away everything that we worked towards establishing,” he said.

Claimants have 18 months to request reimbursement for past therapy expenses.

Montrael Gazette: Settlement for gamblers: Court okays deal with Loto-Québec

Canada’s Quebec Superior Court approved a multimillion-dollar settlement on Tuesday between Loto-Québec and thousands of people with gambling problems. The agreement marks the end of a class-action lawsuit launched in 2001.

An estimated 119,000 pathological gamblers were seeking compensation. Justice Gratien Duchesne ruled the deal, settled out of court, is “just, fair, reasonable, appropriate and in the best interests of the members of the group.”

The agreement will see the Quebec government reimbursing claimants for addiction treatments and other fees to gamblers who underwent therapy between 1994 and 2002. The average reimbursement will be about $5000.

The province has been paying for the treatment for people suffering from compulsive gambling since 2002.

Loto-Québec said it is satisfied with the deal, because it clearly states that the VLT machines did not cause the gamblers’ addiction.

“We were proved right on the most fundamental argument,” said a Loto-Québec spokesman.

Lotto-Quebec: Loto-Québec satisfied with the class action settlement

Loto-Québec is satisfied by Québec Superior Court Justice Gratien Duchesne’s decision to approve the out-of-court settlement of the class action lawsuit that was launched by Québec City lawyer Jean Brochu in regards to video lottery terminals.

During the trial, proof was made that video lottery terminals are not the cause of compulsive gambling. This is a position that Loto-Québec has always defended, and was glad to see the plaintiff recognize the fact in the settlement.

For the sake of fairness, the Government of Québec has agreed to reimburse therapy fees for gamblers who were treated between 1994 and 2002. Claimants have 18 months to send in their receipts and claim reimbursement.

Loto-Québec, a state company that holds a monopoly over all legal gambling in the Canadian province, just got approval from the cabinet to offer online poker and sports betting services starting this fall. Local players already gamble online at foreign-based websites, and Loto-Québec hopes their new services will funnel some of the money spent back into the community.

The Montreal Gazette: Loto-Québec goes online

Loto-Québec is stepping into the lucrative industry of internet gambling with a plan to provide online poker and sports betting Quebecers at a new site that should go live before the end of the year.

The plan was just approved by Quebec cabinet, which sees this as a tool by which they can “cannibalize illegal gambling” sites in Canada. A new electronic platform will be created for Loto-Québec, B.C. Lottery Corp. and Atlantic Lottery Corp., which covers the four Atlantic Provinces.

Betting limits will be emplaced, especially in the poker part of the site. These limits will have to be high, however, if Quebec and its new poker partners hope to compete with existing online poker operations. But even with high limits, the new partnership is not guaranteed to lure players away from existing foreign-hosted sites

“I question whether there will be sufficient liquidity (number of players) to make the site popular and therefore profitable,” says Michael Lipton, a Toronto lawyer specializing in gaming law.

“The operators out there are miles ahead of these new entrants in terms of the number of games they offer and the liquidity. Some sites may have 20 or 30 million players … and poker games going on 24 hours a day,” he said.

The new site will only be accessible to Quebec residents who are physically within the province. Age verification will be carried out by a third party, using a complex process that could take days to complete. In extreme cases, the player may be required to show up in person.

CBC News: Loto-Québec to offer online gambling

Quebec’s state lottery corporation will launch its first online gambling site in September. It is a move that Loto-Québec hopes will millions of dollars to its annual revenue by 2013.

After Loto-Québec joins the online gambling world with poker and sports betting offerings, they stand to earn $50 million for the province over the next three years.

Critics are of course concerned about the idea of offering online gambling because of the effect it might have on gambling addicts.

“By increasing the offer, we increase the number of players,” said Dr. Richard Lessard, the director of Montreal Public Health. “And as we increase the number of players, the number of players with gambling problems will increase as well.”

Loto-Québec argues that nothing will change, since Quebeckers already have access to more than 2,000 online gambling sites that are “illegal, unregulated and often of doubtful integrity.”

Loto-Québec president and CEO Alain Cousineau says,”This is a way for us to channel the gaming offering in a controlled circuit and environment whose integrity will be beyond reproach,” Cousineau said.

The new gambling site will require players to verify their age, limit their weekly deposits, and allow players to “self-exclude at all times,” Cousineau added.

Loto-Québec is already working with its counterparts in British Columbia and Atlantic Canada to develop the site. The three entities hope to share a common gaming platform that will allow players to enjoy online poker across provincial borders.

CTV News Montreal: Loto-Quebec to get into online gambling business

Loto-Quebec just received approval from the Province’s government to offer online gambling services.

The provincial gambling monopoly will work together with the British Columbia and Atlantic Lottery Corporations to set up an online gambling site this fall.

Online gambling across Canada currently generates more than $600 million every year, but most of this money is fed to foreign-based gambling companies.

It is estimated that Quebecers currently have access to more than 2,000 unregulated online gaming sites, including many that are hosted from the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve.

Loto-Quebec president and CEO Alain Cousineau says his agency has been trying for years to fight foreign online gambling sites, but has instead decided to compete with them.

The Loto-Quebec site will be based on the Swedish national lottery model. “In the first four hours when the Swedish poker got online, they got 20 per cent of the market,” said Cousineau.