CasinosReview.Net

In Canada prior to 1967 buying a ticket on the Irish Sweepstakes was illegal. In that year the federal Liberal government introduced a special law (an Omnibus Bill) intended to bring up-to-date a number of obsolete laws. The Minister of Justice at that time, Pierre-Elliot Trudeau, sponsored the bill. On September 12, 1967, Mr. Trudeau announced that his government would insert an amendment concerning lotteries.

Even while the Omnibus Bill was still being written, Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, trying to recover some of the money spent on the World’s Fair and the new subway system, announced a “voluntary tax”. For a $2.00 donation you would be eligible to participate in a draw with a grand prize of $100 000. According to Drapeau, this “tax” was not a lottery for two reasons. The prizes were given out in the form of silver bars, not money, and the “competitors” chosen in a drawing would have to reply correctly to four questions about Montreal during a second draw. That competition would determine the value of the prize that the winner would win. The replies to the questions were printed on the back of the ticket and therefore the questions would not cause any undue problems. The inaugural draw was held on May 27, 1968.

There were debates in Ottawa and Quebec City about the legality of this ‘voluntary tax’. The Minister of Justice alleged it was a lottery. Montreal’s mayor replied that it did not contravene the federal law. While everyone awaited the verdict, the monthly draws went off without a hitch. Players from all over Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia participated.

On September 14, 1968 the Quebec Appeal Court declared Mayor Drapeau’s “voluntary tax” illegal. However, the municipal authorities did not give up the struggle; the Council announced in November that the City would appeal this decision to the Supreme Court.

As the debate over legalities continued, sales dropped significantly, because many people did not want to participate in anything illegal. Despite offers of new prizes the revenue continued to drop monthly, and by the nineteenth and final draw, was only a little over $800 000.

On December 23, 1969 an amendment was made to the Canada’s Criminal Code, allowing a provincial government to legally operate lottery systems.

The first provincial lottery in Canada was Quebec’s Inter-Loto in 1970. Other provinces and regions introduced their own lotteries through the 1970s, and the federal government ran Loto Canada (originally the Olympic Lottery) for several years starting in the late 1970s to help recoup the expenses of the 1976 Summer Olympics. Lottery wins are generally not subject to Canadian tax, but may be taxable in other jurisdictions, depending on the residency of the winner.[2]

Today, Canada has two nation-wide lotteries: Lotto 6/49, and Lotto Super 7 (which started in 1994). These games are administered by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, which is a consortium of the five regional lottery commissions, all of which are owned by their respective provincial and territorial governments:

* Atlantic Lottery Corporation (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador)
* Loto-Québec (Quebec)
* Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (Ontario)
* Western Canada Lottery Corporation (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, Nunavut)
* British Columbia Lottery Corporation (British Columbia)

A lottery is a popular form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize. Some governments outlaw it, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments.

At the beginning of the 20th century, most forms of gambling, including lotteries and sweepstakes, were illegal in many countries, including the U.S.A. and most of Europe. This remained so until after World War II. In the 1960s casinos and lotteries began to appear throughout the world as a means to raise revenue in addition to taxes.

Lotteries are most often run by governments or local states and are sometimes described as a regressive tax, since those most likely to buy tickets will typically be the less affluent members of a society. The astronomically high odds against winning the larger prizes have also led to the epithets of a “tax on stupidity”, “math tax” or “voluntary tax”. They are intended to suggest that lotteries, being an addictive form of gambling, are governmental revenue-raising mechanisms that will attract only those consumers who fail to see that the game is a very bad deal. Indeed, the desire of lottery operators to guarantee themselves a profit requires that an average lottery ticket be worth substantially less than what it costs to buy. After taking into account the present value of the lottery prize as a single lump sum cash payment, the impact of any taxes that might apply, and the likelihood of having to share the prize with other winners, it is not uncommon to find that a ticket for a typical major lottery is worth less than one third of its purchase price. The large multi million dollar prize lotteries in the USA are paid by annuity over 20 years. Therefore, if you take a one-time lump sum cash payment, plus pay the federal taxes, you will end up with about one third of the total prize money offered.

Lotteries come in many formats. The prize can be fixed cash or goods. In this format there is risk to the organizer if insufficient tickets are sold. The prize can be a fixed percentage of the receipts. A popular form of this is the “50-50″ draw where the organizers promise that the prize will be 50% of the revenue. The prize may be guaranteed to be unique where each ticket sold has a unique number. Many recent lotteries allow purchasers to select the numbers on the lottery ticket resulting in the possibility of multiple winners.

The fact that lotteries are commonly played leads to some contradictions against standard models of economic rationality. However, the expectations of some players may not be to win the game, but to experience the thrill and indulge in a fantasy of possibly becoming wealthy. Even ignoring the thrill factor, there is the theoretical possibility that the purchase of a lottery ticket could represent a gain in expected utility, even though it represents a loss in expected monetary value, thus making the purchase a rational decision. Insurance, for instance, represents negative expected monetary value but is not considered to be a tax on stupidity because it is generally believed to deliver positive expected utility to the individual.

Lottery tickets are usually scanned in large numbers, using marksense-technology. With today’s computer performance, it takes less than one second to check if a particular combination was picked up by anyone, even for lotteries like Euromillions or Mega Millions.