Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation

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Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG)
Type Government of Ontario Agency
Founded April 1, 2000
Headquarters Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario & Toronto, Ontario
Products Lotteries, Casinos, Slots. Bingo
Website www.olg.ca

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), also known as Ontario Lottery and Gaming is a Crown Corporation of the Government of Ontario, Canada. It is responsible for the province's lotteries, charity and Aboriginal casinos, commercial casinos, and slot machines at horse-racing tracks. It was created in April 2000 when the Ontario Lottery Corporation (OLC) was merged with the Ontario Casino Corporation (OCC), established in 1994. OLG employs over 8000 individuals throughout Ontario.

The OLG's prize centres are located in Toronto, Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Whereas the OLG is responsible for, and operates a variety of gaming services, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) regulates casino gaming. The OLG reports through its Board of Directors to the Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal.

Contents

Wintario was the first lottery game offered by the fledgling OLG in May 1975. The product was discontinued in late 1996 after awarding over CAD$1.1 billion in winnings.[1]

Ontario Lottery Corporation's (OLC) logo 1975 - 2000.

Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation's (OLG) first logo 2000 - 2006.

OLG's Logo (2006-present).

The OLG has five business divisions[2]:

The OLG operates nine draw-style lottery games through retailers across the province. In addition, OLG also offers Lotto Advance for Lotto 6/49 players.

Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Super 7 are operated across Canada by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation. The OLG also offers instant scratch games under the brand Instant Games, and sports games under the brands Pro-Line, Point-Spread and Pro-Picks.

OLG owns and manages ten casinos, some of which have private operators:

(* Operated directly by the OLG. All others are handled by private operators)

OLG operates slot machine facilities at 17 racetracks across Ontario. They are located at:

OLG operates e-bingo centres in Barrie, Peterborough, Kingston and Sudbury. Some games are linked to be played at all four simultaneously.

On October 25, 2006, the CBC program the fifth estate aired an investigative report on lottery retailers winning major prizes. The report focused on 82-year-old Bob Edmonds whose $250,000 winning Encore ticket was stolen by the clerks of a convenience store when he went to have his ticket checked in 2001. This began a four-year-long ordeal for Edmonds when the OLG ignored his inquiries when the clerk and her husband were falsely named the rightful winners, and later, when the couple were arrested for fraud, refused to return his winnings. The OLG maintained that it wasn't their responsibility that they had been tricked into naming the wrong winner; in 2004, a judge disagreed, and forced the OLG to give Edmonds his money. They did so, on the condition that Edmonds sign a confidentiality agreement, so that he would never tell the press about certain details of the ordeal. Also, the fifth estate uncovered internal OLG memos, where several OLG employees admitted they believed Edmonds' story, even when the OLG was refusing to give him back the money. The report added that over 200 lottery retailers in Ontario have won major prizes from 1999 to 2006. A statistician featured in the report calculated that the chance that this would occur purely out of luck is one in a "trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion" (or quindecillion). [3] Immediately following the broadcast, Bob Edmonds received a call from the OLG's president, Duncan Brown, who apologized and said he was ashamed about how his staff treated Edmonds. The OLG has since released Edmonds from the confidentiality agreement and mandated new security measures to protect lottery customers. Edmonds died on April 2, 2007.

In March 2007, the OLG announced that it had recalled over 1,000,000 scratch and win tickets. The "Super Bingo" series of tickets were removed from retail stores after it was announced that a customer made the claim that he could visually tell which tickets were winners. It was the largest recall ever of a lottery ticket in Canada, and were prompted in part from greater media scrutiny regarding ongoing fraud investigations.

In February 2007, it was discovered that 87 slot machines at Provincially run casinos were displaying subliminal messages on slot machine screens to players. A quick image of a winning hand was shown quickly before the simulated spinning of a slot machine dial would begin. The manufacturer, Konami provided a software update for the machines.

In the wake of these controversies, the provincial government ordered Duncan Brown to be relieved of his position as OLG chief on 21 March 2007. This was not public knowledge until two days later, when Brown's dismissal took effect. David Caplan, Ontario's minister responsible for OLG, intended to announce this firing on 26 March following the release of a report on OLG's situation by provincial ombudsman André Marin.[4][5]


Lottery retailers are required to ensure that lottery tickets are signed; lottery customers will soon be forced to sign their own ticket.
Lottery retailers are required to ensure that lottery tickets are signed; lottery customers will soon be forced to sign their own ticket.
The OLG has redesigned online lottery tickets with a warning message and a signature box which players can now sign from the front.
The OLG has redesigned online lottery tickets with a warning message and a signature box which players can now sign from the front.

  1. ^ Ontario Wintario. MSN/Sympatico (2003). Retrieved on 2006-10-06.
  2. ^ Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation. About the OLG. Retrieved on June 17, 2005.
  3. ^ Luck of the Draw. CBC (2006). Retrieved on 2006-10-25.
  4. ^ "Fired lotto chief `in shock'", Toronto Star, 24 March 2007. Retrieved on 2007-03-24. 
  5. ^ "Chief of Ontario lottery corporation dismissed", CBC, 23 March 2007. Retrieved on 2007-03-24. 

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Lottery_and_Gaming_Corporation"
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