Article published on 22 July 2010

These are dark days for the British Columbia Lottery Corporation, which already came under fire after a security breach caused its newly launched PlayNow.com online gambling site to shut down after only one day of operation.

Critics are now calling on the government to come clear on fines given to the Corporation over money laundering charges.

According to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, the BC Lottery Corporation was fined $600,000 for 1,200 violations related to money laundering in 2008 - 2009.

The minister responsible for gambling in the province, Rich Coleman was avoiding questions this week, much to the infuriation of critics such as NDP member Shane Simpson, who called on the government to show greater transparency.

"The integrity and competence of the BCLC is now in question," said Simpson in a letter to Coleman. "You have an obligation to immediately release all pertinent information and an explanation on the violations and fines."

The Lottery Corporation's integrity has already been called into question after it was caught spinning two different reasons for the failure of the PlayNow.com site to get off the ground after only one day of operations.

The media was told that the site had to close temporarily due to "high player volumes."

However, account holders were told that cross over data problems were detected, with some players being able to access the accounts of other players.

"Information not belonging to that player is then visible, including username, session time, session spend and account balance," admitted the BCLC in a statement.

The Corporation denied that hackers had caused the problems at PlayNow.com.