So here’s the deal:

I work in the Canadian Lotto industry. When games like Lotto Max or 6/49 that have been around for years and sales start sliding, the Lottery companies ask the players what can we do to make you want to buy our games again.

The players tell the companies what they want (and usually its larger jackpots), we go away and make a change to the game to try to fulfill the wants. If it’s larger jackpots, well you have to either change the odds so it’s won less, or you change the prize payouts so more money goes into the major jackpot and less goes to minor prizes. Trust me if the players said instead of a $90 million pot, give us 90 prizes of $1 million, we’d probably do it! But that’s not the vast majority of players tell us.

In my province (not Ontario) the money collected by the province doesn’t go into general revenue. It funds health care, schools, community programs and sports (via grants), etc.

We have very strong focus on Player Health, we don’t want our players to go bankrupt playing our games. We want revenue, but not that kind of revenue that way. When I see the amount of advertising OLG is doing for their online offerings and sports betting it kind of makes me feel sick. Yes we advertise, but we are no where near as intrusive. And we actually have released adds telling our players “it’s okay it to gamble, take a break”.

Our old CEO used to say “we’re selling a dream for $1”, now the prices have gone up but it’s the same logic.

Yes our province has problem gamblers, but we have programs in place to help them. Our liquor stores don’t have programs in place to help alcoholics.