'Super consumer,' CBC team honoured for lottery cleanup
An angry lottery player and a team of CBC journalists who conducted an investigation into the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. have been awarded the Consumers' Association of Canada's top prize.
"Bob is a super consumer who has proved we don't have to stand by and take it." — Bruce Cran, Consumers' Association of Canada president
Bob Edmonds, 81, from Coboconk, Ont., launched a lawsuit against the OLGC, alleging his winning ticket had been fraudulently claimed at a local convenience store. The team of reporters from the CBC's The Fifth Estate conducted an exhaustive investigation, questioning the suspicious number of retailers and clerks who have won lotteries.
"Bob is a super consumer who has proved we don't have to stand by and take it," said Bob Cran, president of the CAC, in a release.
The store owners later paid Edmonds $150,000 as part of a settlement that did not admit any wrongdoing on their part.
Edmonds reached a confidential settlement with the OLGC in 2005, with the corporation spending $425,000 in legal costs on the case.
Edmonds, along with The Fifth Estate 's Gillian Findlay, Harvey Cashore and Linda Guerriero, will be presented with the CAC's order of merit later this year.
Probe found statistical improbabilities
The CBC News investigation revealed that in the past seven years Ontario clerks and retailers have claimed lottery victories nearly 200 times. University of Toronto statistician Jeffery Rosenthal said the number should have been closer to 57.
"This program is without doubt the most effective piece of work I have seen in my 40 years of interest in consumer issues," Cran said. "It took over where Bob Edmonds left off exposing the secrecy of the deal the Ontario lottery commission had forced on Bob Edmonds and throwing light on major concerns in the way the commission conducts its business."
After the report aired, the lottery corporation announced it was introducing security measuresincluding electronic devices for players to check their own tickets, rules prohibiting clerks from handling a ticket unless it has been signed on the back by a customer and video screens that would face customers.
CBC News later raised questions about the high number of retailers and clerks claiming wins on scratch tickets. Internal data from the OLGC indicate that at one point, retailers and clerks claimed wins on scratch tickets 10 per cent of the time.