Lottery scandals aren’t anything new in Ontario
2001— After validating two tickets at his usual Coboconk variety store, Bob Edmonds, 78, is given a free ticket, while the store clerk and her husband redeem the $250,000 jackpot. Edmonds repeatedly complains to lottery officials but is ignored until provincial police begin investigating. The clerk and her spouse are arrested in 2002 for theft and fraud, but charges are stayed. Edmonds sues the pair as well as the lottery corporation and wins both cases. Edmonds dies of cancer in April 2007, shortly after receiving a personal apology from a top lottery official. 2003— Raymond Sobeski, of Princeton, Ont., wins the Lotto Super 7, but waits almost a year to claim his $30 million, during which time he divorces his wife. His former spouse then launches a lawsuit. They reach a support settlement in 2005. 2005— Orillia convenience store owner Hafiz Malik cashes a $5.75-million winning ticket for the 6/49 draw and is later charged with stealing the ticket. In June 2010, he is sentenced to a year in jail. 2008— In 2007, Ontario ombudsman André Marin releases a damning report saying the province’s addiction to gambling revenues had left Ontarians vulnerable to being ripped off by crooked retailers who tell customers they haven’t won and cash in the winning lottery ticket themselves.In the wake of Marin’s report, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. begins investigating any win over $10,000. As a result, a Toronto woman is charged with forgery after she tries to claim a fake “Cash for Life” lottery ticket worth $675,000. The OLG also pays out $80,000 plus interest to a Burlington woman allegedly victimized by a lottery retailer. 2008— Ontario Provincial Police arrest 59-year-old Mary Patricia Moore, of Windsor, Ont., after the theft of a $3.5-million lottery ticket from her 81-year-old husband. Moore collected the prize and split the winnings with her mother and daughter, but her husband later said he bought the ticket. Charges are later dropped. 2009— David Stucky of Toronto is fined a record $2 million after selling bundles of Super 7 lottery tickets to buyers who thought they had a good chance at winning tens of millions of dollars. In the scheme, Stucky mailed about 3.1 million ads to victims and generated $1 million in revenue for the “Canadian Lottery Buyers Association” between March 1999 and May 2000. Participants thought they would be sharing their winnings with a handful of people, but the contract never said how many. The average jackpot was 75 cents. 2011— The Ontario Lottery Corp. awards $12.5 million plus interest to the rightful winners of a 2003 Super 7 prize after they were cheated out of their prize. Three people are later charged with stealing lottery tickets from patrons of a Burlington variety store. One of those tickets, according to police, led to the $12.5-million Super 7 win. 2016— Frank Galella, of Niagara Falls, Ont., is fined a total of $325,000 and sentenced to two years less one day of house arrest for attempting to cheat other members of his lottery group out of their share of a $7-million jackpot by claiming his daughter, and not the group, had won the prize. Compiled by Astrid Lange/Toronto Star Library Sources: Toronto Star files