Atlantic Lottery Corporation


The Atlantic Lottery Corporation , currently branded as simply Atlantic Lottery or Loto Atlantique, is a Canadian organization that operates lottery games in Atlantic Canada. It is owned jointly by the four Atlantic provincial governments: New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. ALC's headquarters are located in Moncton, New Brunswick. Profits returned by ALC are distributed to the provinces for their general funds.

History

ALC was founded in 1976, shortly after the founding of government lotteries elsewhere in Canada. While ALC's first games were only played on a regional basis, it quickly joined the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, which offered national draws.
ALC has been seen by some as an innovator in lottery technology. In 1988, they became the first lottery organization in the world to print a bar code on all draw and scratch tickets, allowing for instant verification of a prize. In 1990, they introduced the first legal video lottery terminals in Canada. Another first in North America was the introduction of PlaySphere in 2004, which allowed users to play the lottery over the Internet.
In 2007, Atlantic Lottery was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean's magazine, the only provincial gaming authority to receive this honour.
Since 1976, ALC has awarded more than $5.5 billion in prizes and paid out $5.9 billion in profits to its four shareholders.

Games and products

In Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, ALC owns the Red Shores Racetrack and Casino at Charlottetown Driving Park which includes harness racing, slot machines and poker tables and is located. It also runs Red Shores at Summerside Raceway in Summerside.

Major sponsorships

The ALC is a sponsor of the Atlantic Canadian Peter Gzowski Invitational golf tournament since 2002. PGI is a charitable event in support of increased literacy. Atlantic Lottery Corporation has supported the Canada Games virtually from the corporation's foundation.
The ALC also supported the 2009 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.