Lottery Online
Online lottery is an activity in which participants purchase tickets for a chance to win a prize. The prizes may be cash or goods. The Internet has made lottery play accessible to a much wider audience, and the popularity of this type of game has risen in recent years. Its legality, however, varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
In the United States, state-sanctioned lotteries are common, but their rules vary widely. Some are run by private organizations, while others are operated by government agencies. The latter tend to have more stringent requirements, but they may offer more prestigious awards. In addition, they are often more transparent in their operations than private ones.
Canada has four nationwide lotteries: Lotto 6/49, Lotto Max (which replaced Lotto Super 7 in September 2009), Daily Grand, and Millionaire Life. The games are administered by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, a consortium of the five regional lottery commissions owned by their respective provincial/territorial governments: Atlantic Lottery Corporation (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador), Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (Ontario), Loto-Quebec (Quebec), and Western Canada Lottery Corporation (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut). In addition, the Isle of Man participates in the United Kingdom National Lottery and EuroMillions.
Lottery games are played worldwide, with a large portion of sales coming from the United States and Europe. Despite their popularity, most of these games are illegal in many parts of the world, as gambling laws have not kept pace with technological developments. However, a number of companies have developed software for playing lottery-style games over the Internet, which allow players to purchase tickets online and win prizes. Some of these services charge a premium on top of base lottery ticket prices, while others offer free tickets in return for watching advertisements.
Cheng Saephan, a 46-year-old immigrant from Laos who now lives in the Portland suburb of Milwaukie, said winning the Powerball jackpot, a lump sum payment of $422 million after taxes, has changed his life. He wore a blue sash at a news conference identifying himself as an Iu Mien, a southeast Asian ethnic group that has roots in southern China and that fled Laos for Thailand and then the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
Officials in the communist country of Laos have been accused of rigging lottery drawings, manipulating winning numbers in order to avoid large pay-outs. Sources say the numbers on purchased tickets frequently vanish during the national lottery’s drawing process, and winning numbers that appear are deemed unlucky or unlikely to be chosen. The rigging has been exacerbated by the fact that most people in the country cannot afford to buy tickets, and even those who can are often unaware of how to do so. Laos’s legal system also makes it difficult to prosecute lottery officials.