Lake Superior camp lot lottery licensed by Quebec Indigenous group
Lottery runs on servers located on traditional Mohawk territory, organizer says
A lottery offering a northwestern Ontario lakefront camp lot as its top prize has raised some eyebrows because it's being sponsored by a Quebec Indigenous group, but one of the organizers says it's all legal.
The lottery is being run by the Lotto Factory in support of the Thunder Bay North Stars, Boys and Girls Clubs of Thunder Bay, and the Regional Food Distribution Association. The top prize is a 1.5-acre lot on Lake Superior in Shuniah valued at $225,000.
Lotto Factory CEO Ric Cuthbertson said it's the first northwestern Ontario lottery the group has organized.
However, the process is running under the lottery licence of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which operates on traditional Mohawk territory in Quebec, and tickets are all bought online.
"[Kahnawake] built the infrastructure to do online gaming, so all the transactions technically take place on the servers within the Kahnawake First Nations area," he said.
Cuthbertson said the Lotto Factory has organized lotteries in other provinces, including New Brunswick, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, and elsewhere in Ontario.