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Canadian Atlantic lottery online branch opens

Tickets for the government owned lottery are now available online

Wednesday 25th August 2004

In Canada yesterday, the Atlantic Lottery Corporation launched its online lottery venture. Tickets are now available to be purchased online for the government owned lottery. This is the first publicly owned organisation to make this move to online tickets in Canada.

The site recorded over 100 purchasers by mid day, but the corporation says it is not expecting the online service to make a huge impact on lottery sales. The decision to host an online branch has been put in place to interest the section of the population who already turn to the web to do banking, make purchases and take part in web entertainment.

The product is known as PlaySphere, and as Darlene Doucet a spokesperson for the lottery corporation explained, We officially launched PlaySphere . . . to offer a service for a group of people who are comfortable online.' Forecasts are predicting that in three to five years the site will be generating approximately $5.9 million in revenue for Atlantic, solely from online purchases.

The decision to launch this site has been met with some criticism, although critics also concede that the move is likely to be followed copied by other lottery companies, with the most likely candidate being Loto-Quebec. Although this online lottery facility is the first of its kind in Canada, there are already similar sites functioning throughout most of Europe, and Australia.




Source: OnlineCasinoNews