B.C. Lottery Giving 2010 Olympic Tickets As Winning Prizes
The B.C. Lottery, which is a sponsor for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, will take "'thousands' of the tickets it is entitled to buy" and "turn them into prizes" in its C$5 SportsFunder lottery game, according to a front-page piece by Derrick Penner of the VANCOUVER SUN. The lottery is starting with 100 pairs of tickets to the Opening Ceremony and C$1,000 cash. Odds of winning tickets are 1-in-5,000, and "some of the proceeds will be paid as royalties" to VANOC to cover B.C. Lottery's C$15M sponsorship, while remaining proceeds will support amateur sports programs in the province. VANOC Exec VP/Revenue, Marketing & Communications Dave Cobb said all net revenues "are going into amateur sports. This is what this sponsorship agreement was all about" (VANCOUVER SUN, 10/23). B.C. Lottery President Dana Hayden said that the Opening Ceremony tickets "will be the first ones available anywhere" (CP, 10/23). However, Citizens Against Gambling Expansion spokesperson Isabel Minty said the lottery is "trying to brighten up its tarnished image by riding in on this clean image of amateur sport. It's a how-low-can-you-get kind of conduct to promote your business" (NATIONAL POST, 10/23).
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