Managers at Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. and the Liberal government both have rattled consumer confidence by failing to prevent lottery ticket retailers from winning too many jackpots, the province’s opposition parties charged yesterday.
The Conservatives and New Democrats said management at the lottery agency failed to implement measures to detect suspicious lottery wins by retailers, and charged the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty with failing to provide adequate oversight of the Crown agency.

“These guys, the lottery corporation and the McGuinty government, are dragged kicking and screaming into revealing any information about what’s going on,” complained Progressive Conservative leader John Tory.
“The lottery players of Ontario have the right to know that these games are fair and are being run in a way that guarantees them there’s going to be no fooling around.
“Let’s figure out first, through an independent investigation, what the scope of the problem is,” Tory added.
Police said Tuesday they had found no evidence of wrongdoing in the case of the Jackson family from the Northwestern Ontario town of Jellicoe, 200 km northeast of Thunder Bay, after family members claimed 167 lottery prizes in nine years worth more than $1.2 million.
“I guess that’s the kind of luck that all of us would want,” said Tory.
“I think people who play these games have a right to be very disturbed by these kinds of allegations, and by the conduct of Mr. McGuinty and this corporation who have to have information dragged out of them,” he remarked.
Barry Jackson, who passed away last year, his wife, Corrie, and their sons, Rob and Trevor, all were multiple winners in various Ontario lottery games dating back to 1995 during their tenure as owners of the Jellicoe Trading Post, sometimes scoring several jackpots in one week.
Jackson claimed a total of $1,157,000—most of it in a single February, 2000 win worth $1,011,350, according to documents released Tuesday as part of a freedom of information request.
But it was wife, Corrie, who claimed the bulk of the wins—127 separate prizes totalling $105,900. Wins in the names of the two children totalled about $15,000.
The family sold the retail outlet four years ago.
“We didn’t have anything to hide, as far as I was concerned,” Corrie Jackson told CBC Radio. “Whatever Barry won and the boys won, and whatever I might have won, was all above board.”
OLG has now hired outside auditors to look at wins by lottery retailers going back as far as 1995, but the opposition parties say that’s not good enough.
The New Democrats, for one, say the issue is serious enough to warrant a full public inquiry.
“There is a stink there,” said NDP critic Peter Kormos. “Why weren’t management dealing with it in an appropriate way and a prompt way?”
Public Infrastructure minister George Smitherman, who is responsible for OLG, is in Europe on business this week and was unavailable for comment.