Save Canadian Poker

For a province that suddenly wants so badly to abolish all forms of online gambling (with a few exceptions of course), it is ironic that Ontario would be so heavily involved in the sports betting business.

How so?

The Ontario Lottery Corporation (OLC) runs what is called the Sports Select Lottery.

Hartley Henderson explains how it works in an article appearing on that site:

“For those who aren’t familiar with Sport Select in Ontario, there are 3 games that the lottery runs: Proline, Point Spread and Pro Picks which include pools and proposition cards. Proline is the most popular game for ice hockey, which is the OLC’s largest sporting event in terms of revenue. NFL football comes close behind, but for that players tend to play Point Spread. Pro Picks has a much smaller following. In Proline, a pick em line for any baseball or hockey game is a 1.7 dividend on either side. That equates to -142 as a money line.

“So the OLC expects you to bet into an 84 cent line. Plus, because there is a federal law outlawing single game sports betting, the lottery forces you to parlay between 3 and 6 games in Proline. Therefore, when multiplied out, the expected hold on these tickets is 39% for a 3 team parlay, 48% for a 4 team parlay, 56% for a 5 team parlay and 63% for those dumb enough to bet 6 teamers. Point Spread (the same as betting spreads at any sportsbook) is a bit better, but the odds are still terrible.

“Payouts are even money on a 2 team parlay, 4/1 on a 3 teamer, 9/1 on a 4 teamer and so on. For those who can hit 12 of 12 the OLC honours you with a 999/1 payout. Of course, the true payout for such a bet is 4095/1. Mind you, they do have small consolation prizes for picking 10 of 12 or 11 of 12.”

Even worse than the payouts is when the OLC won’t pay.

“In October of this year, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s TV show “The Fifth Estate” did a story about the theft of a winning ticket from an elderly man in Northern Ontario . Actually it wasn’t outright theft. The man won a $250,000 Encore lottery ticket and when he took it to the store and asked the clerk to check it, the clerk told him he had lost.

“In fact, the ticket won, but the clerk lied about the true status of the ticket and later cashed the ticket herself. The Ontario Lottery Corporation (OLC), refused to consider the man’s claim and then went into a series of denials, blame shifting and they eventually settled with the man once the courts ruled the OLC was obligated to ensure their agents (i.e. the store owners) acted appropriately.

“The OLC refused to apologize and forced the man to sign an agreement not to discuss the case publicly. The story also revealed an astronomical number of large wins by ticket agents which were statistically impossible to have occurred by chance. The OLC again refused to acknowledge the possibility of widespread insider theft and instead suggested the public needed to act more responsibly when purchasing tickets.

“After public and media backlash following the airing of the story, the OLC finally issued an apology to the man, admitted culpability and made a statement that they would put in some new security measures to stop the theft by agents. Actually, the public apology was more of a backhanded statement to the tune of “we’re sorry the public doesn’t trust us,” but at least they finally owned up to the problem.”