Type Crown Corporation Number of employees 900 Founded 1984 | Products Lotteries Headquarters Kamloops, Canada | |
 | ||
Key people Jim Lightbody, President since 2014
Michael Grayson, President 2008-2014 Revenue $3.1 billion 2016
$2.9 billion 2015 Owner partnership of provincial lottery corporations CEO Jim Lightbody (30 Jan 2014–) Profiles | ||
The British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) is a Canadian crown corporation of the Province of British Columbia, Canada sometimes referred to as 'BC Lotto'.
Contents
It has provided government sanctioned lottery games in British Columbia since 1985, headquartered in Kamloops. Prior to this it was an umbrella of the Western Canada Lottery Foundation.
In 2017, BCLC is expected to expand or move its headquarters in Kamloops.
To prevent overusage by the public, BCLC also provides Responsible Gambling programs.
As a provincial government's corporation, $0.88 of every revenue dollar is transferred to the provincial government. Since 1985 foundation, more than $19 billion have been contributed to health care, education and community programs.
In conjunction with the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, the BCLC offers Canada's highest payout lotteries: Lotto 6/49 and Lotto Max. In 1992, BCLC opened the BC/49 lottery.
In addition, the BCLC also manages casinos and bingos in British Columbia. In 1997, BCLC started managing slot machines in the province and the first casino to launch the machines was Great Canadian Casino Newton in Surrey, British Columbia.
In 2004, BCLC launched PlayNow.com, Canada’s first legal online gambling website. PlayNow.com offers a variety of gambling games and services including Casino, Poker, Sports Betting, Bingo and Lottery. In 2010, a privacy breach caused the site to be taken down for a month.
In 2016, the website received more than $396,000 from BC residents wagered about the 2016 USA Presidential Election, the majority of bets were for Donald Trump, who won the election.