Despite new allegations of lottery fraud, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and his gaming minister assured the public Wednesday they can still trust the system.

In addition to retailers claiming an inordinate number of lottery wins, CBC News has learned that Ontario's lottery corporation has also been battling problems related to instant scratch tickets.

Investigators are looking into allegations that tickets have been scratched lightly to see if they are winners.
(CBC)

Internal data from the OLG indicate that at one point, retailers and clerks claimed wins on scratch tickets 10 per cent of the time, The Fifth Estate has learned as part of an ongoing probe.

McGuinty said his government is considering the allegations seriously but won't take any steps until the province's ombudsman, André Marin, has finished his investigation.

And Ontario Lottery and Gaming Minister David Caplan said despite the findings, the lottery system has strict security controls.

"I think that the public should have a great deal of confidence in the Ontario Lottery and Gaming and in the lottery system," he said. "We have some of the most stringent security measures in North America in fact we have recently enhanced those and if there is more to be done the public should be assured that it certainly will be."

Last month, it was revealed that in the past seven years Ontario clerks and retailers have claimed lottery victories nearly 200 times. University of Toronto statistician Jeffery Rosenthal said statistically the number should have been closer to 57, and was a statistical anomaly nearly impossible to achieve.

OLG CEO Duncan Brown reiterated to CBC Tuesday night that the corporation has since put in new, more stringent security measures in place for all of its games.

"We're committed to doing better and we want to make sure that we retain that public trust," Brown said.

According to OLG documents, investigators looking into allegations of insider scratch ticket wins routinely checked for "pin-pricking," where a card is scratched very lightly to see if it contains a winning code.

Toronto statistician Mohan Srivastava also discovered a way the tickets could be decoded to predict a winner on the game "Tic Tac Toe" nearly three years ago.

Srivastava would look at the numbers on the ticket, and if a sequence of numbers was lined up in tic-tac-toe fashion and were not repeated anywhere else on the ticket, it was likely a winner.

"If someone explained the trick to you, I think, I actually know, a child could do it," Srivastava said.

He contacted the OLG about the trend, and while the corporation recalled unsold tickets of the game, it never went public with the information.

Opposition demands independent probe

Opposition critics say the allegations have raised serious questions and are calling on the Liberals to launch an independent investigation.

The Fifth Estate probe into retailer lottery wins stemmed from a lawsuit involving Coboconk, Ont., senior Bob Edmonds and the OLG. Edmonds alleged that his winning ticket had been fraudulently claimed at a local store and eventually reached a settlement with both the retailer and the OLG.

After the report aired, the lottery corporation announced measures such as more electronic devices for players to check their own tickets, rules prohibiting clerks from handling a ticket unless it has been signed on the back by a customer and video screens that would face customers.

Lottery corporations from across Canada also indicated they would review their security procedures after the report.

Brown said the agency had been "properly chastised" and called Edmonds to apologize.

The Fifth Estate update, Luck of the Draw, will air Wednesday at 9 p.m.