The release of Atlantic Lottery’s 2022-23 Annual Report last week provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on the progress we made over the previous year, while also looking ahead to the goals we are working hard to achieve in our current fiscal year.

Every year, Atlantic Lottery contributes to the Atlantic Canadian economy by returning 100 per cent of our profit to the four provincial governments. In 2022-23, we were proud to deliver $492.2 million to support important services we all use, including health care, education and infrastructure.

This is just one component of our economic support, as 92 cents of every lottery dollar stays in the region through prizes, employee salaries and benefits, retailer commissions and regional operations. We are further committed to strengthening our communities by supporting diverse events throughout Atlantic Canada, both through our sponsorship program and volunteering. For added transparency, we recently started to share all of our sponsored events on alc.ca.

As the only legal provider of online gambling and sports-betting products in the region, Atlantic Lottery’s revenue directly benefits Atlantic Canadians. This sets us apart from illegal gambling sites that are advertising and operating in our region. We remain concerned about the continued growth of these operators and are leading ongoing education and awareness initiatives to ensure players understand that these illegal sites are not regulated by the government and their profit does not stay in Atlantic Canada.

As a values-driven organization, we are committed to living our corporate values every day and proud of our history of strong social responsibility programs, including community sponsorships, employee wellness, asset disposal, an ethics hotline and, of course, healthy play. During 2022-23, we reached some key milestones related to healthy play and responsible gambling, including the release of our new Healthy Play Policy in October 2022. This policy outlines how Atlantic Lottery can proactively support high-risk players and highlights the responsible gambling tools available on alc.ca.

Our online responsible gambling tools have been endorsed by two independent world-leading accreditation programs: the World Lottery Association Level 4 Recertification, which we have held since 2010, and the RG Check Accreditation from the Responsible Gambling Council, which we received in 2022. We are incredibly proud of these accreditations and will continue to prioritize healthy play across all our operations and initiatives. In addition to the world-class tools and resources we provide to our players, we also deliver responsible gambling training to employees, retailers and video lottery operators, as well as ongoing compliance monitoring at retail locations to ensure age verification protocols are followed.

In 2022-23, we began the first steps of a new social purpose journey – a more intentional way to enhance and improve Atlantic Lottery’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices. Some early examples include our involvement in the PrintReleaf program to contribute to reforestation and reduce Atlantic Lottery’s environmental impact, Indigenous ally training and workshops to support our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation and additional transparency about Board and committee meetings with updates now available on alc.ca.

While we’re excited about these initial steps, we recognize that there is still a lot of work ahead of us. We will continue to rise to this challenge for the betterment of our organization and local communities.