OLG Freeroll? lol
Class-action suit launched against lotto agency
A Toronto law firm is launching a class-action suit against the Ontario Lottery Corporation on behalf of a client who has purchased lotto tickets but never won.
A lawsuit was filed in a Toronto courtroom on Wednesday morning for Etobicoke resident Boleslaw Karchut. A written statement from law firm McPhadden, Samac, Merner & Barry, said the claim "is on behalf of all persons" who bought lottery tickets since 1975.
"That's when lotteries first started in Ontario, sponsored by the Ontario government," lawyer Bryan McPhadden told CTV.ca.
The amount of the claim is $1.1 billion which includes $100 million in "punitive damages."
McPhadden said they are proposing a solution within the lawsuit, which they call a "novel resolution."
"We propose that the lottery corporation hold a free lottery," McPhadden said adding that it would take place over a six-month period.
Because there is no way for people to know if they lost winnings due to a theft or fraud by a lottery retailer, pursuing the class-action suit is difficult, according to McPhadden.
But he believes his firm's proposal solves the problem in an equitable way.
"There doesn't seem to be an awful lot of doubt - but I guess the lottery corporation would say differently - that people have been deprived but we don't know and can't possibly know who they are," McPhadden said.
"So who do you reward? You don't know. So what's the proper reward; it's to give those people who have been buying lottery tickets an opportunity to win this time."
He added that Karchut chose to pursue the lawsuit after discussions with the law firm. McPhadden said that Karchut is upset about buying lottery tickets for several years but not knowing whether he has won or not.
If the suit is successful in court, the proposed free lottery solution would offer a free ticket to lottery buyers for an upcoming special draw. People who can prove that they purchased tickets in the past would also qualify to receive a free ticket.
"So the usual lotteries continue but they get a free ticket with the ticket that they purchase."
"What's fair about it is, those people who play the lottery heavily - or more frequently - than others will have a proportionate opportunity to win the free lottery," McPhadden said.
He believes that if the court finds in favour of his client and the proposed resolution, it will mean changes at the lottery corporation.
"If the court awards a sizable sum, that's money that's not going to go to OLG or further on, to the province. Hopefully it's a sizable enough amount that yes, it will have an impact."
Political fallout
In the wake of a report by Ontario's ombudsman, opposition parties focused on the cabinet minister responsible for OLG. Calls for David Caplan's resignation were stepped up on Wednesday.
New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos said "hell no" when asked if he would buy a lottery ticket for this week's draw.
"I would far sooner put my money into some mobster on a numbers game before I would buy an OLG ticket as long as David Caplan is minister," Kormos said.
The official opposition was less pointed with their criticism but said people were being ripped off.
"Obviously, there was an indication long before this became public that there were problems. This government took absolutely no action whatsoever and people were being ripped off by the gaming commission," Progressive Conservative MPP Elizabeth Witmer said.
Premier Dalton McGuinty stood by his embattled cabinet minister. The government plans to implement all the recommendations included in the ombudsman's report.
While the minister deals with calls to step down, another controversy is brewing.
Caplan denied Wednesday that the government told OLG to launch a public relations offensive to refute reports that retailers were winning too many jackpots.
The corporation's strategy was to say that lottery insiders win more often because they play more than most people.
When asked about a report that his former communications director and a well-known Liberal strategist helped devise OLG's public relations strategy, McGuinty repeated his promise to implement the ombudsman's recommendations.
Caplan said that Jim Warren and Warren Kinsella were working for OLG at the time and not his office. He would not say whether the men were also working for the premier's office.
"I can't comment on that," Caplan said. "But what I can tell you is that I'm not involved in the day-to-day operations or the personnel decisions of the OLG."
New Democrats claimed Wednesday that the involvement of two high-profile Liberals shows the premier's office was involved in the public relations plan.
"When Mr. Kinsella is involved in a high-profile damage control event like that, it seems to me that the only inference that you can draw is that the premier's office's fingerprints are all over it," Kormos said.
The government countered by pointing out that several Conservative supporters also worked on OLG's reaction plan.
With a report from CTV's Paul Bliss and files from The Canadian Press
28/03/2007 1:32:26 PM
A Toronto law firm is launching a class-action suit against the Ontario Lottery Corporation on behalf of a client who has purchased lotto tickets but never won.
A lawsuit was filed in a Toronto courtroom on Wednesday morning for Etobicoke resident Boleslaw Karchut. A written statement from law firm McPhadden, Samac, Merner & Barry, said the claim "is on behalf of all persons" who bought lottery tickets since 1975.
"That's when lotteries first started in Ontario, sponsored by the Ontario government," lawyer Bryan McPhadden told CTV.ca.
The amount of the claim is $1.1 billion which includes $100 million in "punitive damages."
McPhadden said they are proposing a solution within the lawsuit, which they call a "novel resolution."
"We propose that the lottery corporation hold a free lottery," McPhadden said adding that it would take place over a six-month period.
Because there is no way for people to know if they lost winnings due to a theft or fraud by a lottery retailer, pursuing the class-action suit is difficult, according to McPhadden.
But he believes his firm's proposal solves the problem in an equitable way.
"There doesn't seem to be an awful lot of doubt - but I guess the lottery corporation would say differently - that people have been deprived but we don't know and can't possibly know who they are," McPhadden said.
"So who do you reward? You don't know. So what's the proper reward; it's to give those people who have been buying lottery tickets an opportunity to win this time."
He added that Karchut chose to pursue the lawsuit after discussions with the law firm. McPhadden said that Karchut is upset about buying lottery tickets for several years but not knowing whether he has won or not.
If the suit is successful in court, the proposed free lottery solution would offer a free ticket to lottery buyers for an upcoming special draw. People who can prove that they purchased tickets in the past would also qualify to receive a free ticket.
"So the usual lotteries continue but they get a free ticket with the ticket that they purchase."
"What's fair about it is, those people who play the lottery heavily - or more frequently - than others will have a proportionate opportunity to win the free lottery," McPhadden said.
He believes that if the court finds in favour of his client and the proposed resolution, it will mean changes at the lottery corporation.
"If the court awards a sizable sum, that's money that's not going to go to OLG or further on, to the province. Hopefully it's a sizable enough amount that yes, it will have an impact."
Political fallout
In the wake of a report by Ontario's ombudsman, opposition parties focused on the cabinet minister responsible for OLG. Calls for David Caplan's resignation were stepped up on Wednesday.
New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos said "hell no" when asked if he would buy a lottery ticket for this week's draw.
"I would far sooner put my money into some mobster on a numbers game before I would buy an OLG ticket as long as David Caplan is minister," Kormos said.
The official opposition was less pointed with their criticism but said people were being ripped off.
"Obviously, there was an indication long before this became public that there were problems. This government took absolutely no action whatsoever and people were being ripped off by the gaming commission," Progressive Conservative MPP Elizabeth Witmer said.
Premier Dalton McGuinty stood by his embattled cabinet minister. The government plans to implement all the recommendations included in the ombudsman's report.
While the minister deals with calls to step down, another controversy is brewing.
Caplan denied Wednesday that the government told OLG to launch a public relations offensive to refute reports that retailers were winning too many jackpots.
The corporation's strategy was to say that lottery insiders win more often because they play more than most people.
When asked about a report that his former communications director and a well-known Liberal strategist helped devise OLG's public relations strategy, McGuinty repeated his promise to implement the ombudsman's recommendations.
Caplan said that Jim Warren and Warren Kinsella were working for OLG at the time and not his office. He would not say whether the men were also working for the premier's office.
"I can't comment on that," Caplan said. "But what I can tell you is that I'm not involved in the day-to-day operations or the personnel decisions of the OLG."
New Democrats claimed Wednesday that the involvement of two high-profile Liberals shows the premier's office was involved in the public relations plan.
"When Mr. Kinsella is involved in a high-profile damage control event like that, it seems to me that the only inference that you can draw is that the premier's office's fingerprints are all over it," Kormos said.
The government countered by pointing out that several Conservative supporters also worked on OLG's reaction plan.
With a report from CTV's Paul Bliss and files from The Canadian Press
Comments
Lotteries are a joke and if you're too stupid to understand the odds or more stupid to not check your tickets or the screen yourself when you take them in to get scanned you deserve to miss out on anything you may have won!
I'm going to sue the Beer Store because this body didn't originally come with a spare tire, now it has one...I think something in the neighbourhood of 1 gazillion dollars should work?
Would you settle for a free case of beer......:)
And to think people are concerned about online poker.
What do you think the EV will be on this?
How about if they just legalized internet gambling..... after all WHO are they protecting us from?
You know what? I gotta disagree with that. I hate it when someone buys me a scratch and win ticket for Christmas or something and it is one of those stupid Bingo or Crossword puzzle type games. I find them enormously complicated.
The people who I find dumb are the ones who buy them on purpose and think they are getting value because they think they are playing a 'game'.
Anyways I just scratch the bloody things off and give them to the clerk to tell me if I won. They could easily scam me because I have no clue if I won and there is no way to tell in those games if you don't play them out.
Clearly instead of those stupid 'secret codes' when you scratch the entire thing off, somewhere on the card it should say 'Winner'.
Can you imagine 'rolling up the rim' and having it say AABBXZYYY3241 underneath and having to take it back to the counter and asking the coffee lady to scan your cup to find out if you won? No of course not. It is a ludicrous way to run a corporation that involves potentially life changing amounts of money, the profits from which, btw, are supposed to go to charity.
If people can double swipe your debit card easily with a hidden skimmer machine and steal the data, it is even simpler for an unscrupulous variety store owner to keep a losing card hidden under the counter and swap out your card for the loser, scan it, and tell you that you lost. The variety store owners have seen the 'secret codes' a million times and can tell at a glance if you have won or lost but unless you are a dedicated scratch and win crack head, average Joe has no idea if he won.
I will guarantee that a significant portion of those scratch and win tickets go to Joe Clueless guys like me. The owners of those stores are not stupid. They know who their regulars are and who they can get away with scamming.
To further that. Is there any reason at all why those lottery kiosk thingys are not self serve? Why can't the scanner be mounted in the store where Average Joe can scan the tickets himself? Bar code readers are all over the place in Zellers and Walmart.
of course
Too funny...but just one more thing to make the line at Timmy's move more slowly, as if the idiot with the 3 page essay on who wants what in their coffee back at the office and then paying each of the 30 'orders' seperately to keep the change organized isn't enough?
So let us know how your lawsuit works out Moose
Big E, also alot of the people who lost their money were the eldery. They didn't have loud noises with flashing lights back in the day when you had a winner. I saw a CBC documentary about one such man, and after more than a decade he was finally compensated, and the cashier who stole the ticket couldn't even talk to CBC because she was under a gag order by OLC. It's truly sad that people who stoop so low. Personally I think the lottery is a terrible thing, in feeds off the people of lower intelligence with addictive personalities... That money would be better spent on food or in the case of wealthy people, given to a charity.
Well said, I agree it is sad...sometimes I joke that the lottery is tax on the stupid. It's sad in many ways, it's sad to see the elderly dumping what little coin they have into the system this way, it's sad to see the rich waste it on a chance to get richer instead of donating to charity, and it's also sad to see my hard earned tax dollars that go to support some chain-smoking mother of 15 with no intention of ever getting a job spending her welfare cheque on smokes and lottery tickets and maybe a bottle of malt liquor or worse one of the fathers of those 15 kids who's too lazy to go look for a job spending it on lottery tickets and the playboy channel? Unfortunately the majority of people playing can't afford to and they're hoping for a miracle to get them out of whatever financial difficulties they are in....if they only knew throwing that $2 or $4 a week into some sort of investment would help them way more then a million to one shot they'd be better off.
Lotteries should be treated like gambling really...well, they'd even be better off hitting the casino with their paycheck then blowing it on the lottery?