Thursday, January 31, 2013

Atlantic Lotto: a cruel predator

Atlantic Lotto has been running feel good ads again on the supper hour news, and have revived the askaway site.

In their recent ads they remarkably brag about how much money they rip off the players for. For every dollar wagered by players they pay out 34 cents to winners, keeping 66 cents.

The government helps itself to 35% off the top as profit. Additionally 12% of the ALC wagers go to government as taxes. So it's actually 47% of every dollar wagered is removed and transferred to government. I'm not sure why ALC needs the remaining 19% to fund operations seems kind of high but w/e I guess.

Let's compare ALC to a simple casino game. red-black on standard 37 slot roulette. In this game for every dollar wagered

18 times in 37 the player wins and the house pays out $2
19 times in 37 the house wins and pays $0

So for every dollar wagered the house returns over 97 cents to the players, keeping only 3% as pre-expense profit margin. Why then does ALC need to keep 66 cents of every dollar wagered?

In order to rig red/black roulette to pay out at 34% ALC rates it would have to be
1-7 the players win
8-36 and 00 the house wins

Incredibly the ALC feel good ads insist they provide "safe and regulated" gambling. How can it be considered "safe" for the players if they are obviously being fleeced and ripped off?

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