The Atlantic Lottery Corp. is introducing more measures aimed at tightening the security of lottery ticket validation, the corporation said this week.
Starting Monday, the corporation's online ticket terminals will print two slips whenever a winning ticket is validated for an amount the retailer is to pay, a release Wednesday said.
After validating winning tickets, retailers will be required to pay the prize, stamp the winning tickets Paid, and return them along with one of the validation slips to the player as a confirmation of prize payout.
Retailers can keep the other validation slip for their records, the release said.
The corporation "is putting these changes in place so that our retailers can sell with confidence and our players can play with confidence," said Michelle Carinci, ALC's president and CEO.
"Our ultimate goal is to ensure that the lottery system in Atlantic Canada operates with the utmost integrity. This new practice, along with the requirement that players sign their tickets before validation takes place, allows players to maintain better control over their tickets."
Canada's lottery sales operations have been under fire since a CBC-TV documentary last year showed a remarkable number of retailers in Ontario held winning tickets compared to average lottery customers.
Since then, probes have been ordered across Canada, and lottery agency policies have been changed in a move to improve security.
A Toronto-area mathematics professor who assisted the CBC has said the odds of Ontario retailers winning the lottery so many times were astronomical.