The National Lottery of France, La Francaise Des
Jeux, is in the hot seat after substantial accusations arose, accusing the
lottery of cheating players on a countrywide scale. A prominent
businessman, Robert Riblet, could be considered the source of the fire La
Francaise Des Jeux is now in, having first publicly accused the lottery of
printing lottery scratch cards in a premeditated fashion that is nothing but
random.
La Francaise Des Jeux denied these claims,
defending their operations by stating that all lottery cards are printed on a
random basis, according to standards of fair odds. Riblet, however, has
refuted this defense, and has gone on to file a 2 million Euro lawsuit against,
which he invited the 29 million+ French lottery players to do as well.
Backing Riblet's accusation is the Le Monde newspaper, which supposedly
was given documents that proved La Francaise Des Jeux had tried to settle
with Riblet outside of court.
The largest spark to this story most recently was
the start of a battle between media conglomerates and legal representatives who
are accusing French television stations of censoring many of the allegations
that have surfaced from Riblet's lawsuit. The reason being is the French
lottery pays out over 56 million Euro in advertising revenue to the largest
media outsourcing companies and television stations in France.
At this time, La Francaise Des Jeux has not
addressed the accusations at length. More will surely come from this story
as legal procedures begin to settle. In the meantime, the French lottery
continues business as usual. It has not been a good month for lotteries,
to say the least. Just this month, the highly anticipated UK charity
lottery, Chariot Lottery, fared horribly in their inaugural draw, amidst
executive resignations and accusations of unwarranted financial bonuses to
directors and employees.