Office Lottery Pools: All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses A Share

Employee lottery pools are quite common in the workplace. Groups of people jointly purchase lottery tickets in hopes of winning and sharing the prize. Everyone wants in on the action as no one wants to be left out of the game should the group actually win. These groups are usually formed informally with no hard set rules. We all know the odds of winning are very small and luckily when it does happen, the collecting and sharing of the prize usually goes smoothly. However, once in awhile disputes as to who is entitled to a lottery share become problematic.

The courts have rarely dealt with employee lottery disputes. The following are some types of employee lottery disputes that have been before the courts:

Case Issue Facts Result Taylor v. Smith, 1995 CanLII 7219 (ONSC) Is employee group member entitled to a portion of a winning ticket when the ticket purchases were contrary to his understanding of the contribution? Group leader collected $4 from employees to buy lottery tickets for Draw A and Draw B. Some of the group decide to use the money to purchase only for Draw A (Contributor David Taylor was not part of this decision). Draw A takes place and is not a winner. Group leader then collects more money for Draw B and Taylor says that he already contributed for Draw B. Draw B wins the group $1.15M. Group meets and decides Taylor not entitled to a share. Court decided that the person collecting money for the draw was a holding the money in trust and had an obligation to apply the funds collected in accordance with the terms by which each member paid. Group leader breached the terms of the trust by excluding Taylor from the winnings. Taylor entitled to his equal share. Spiro v. Koc, 2016 ONCA 592 (CanLII) Was an employee lottery contributor entitled to a share after leaving his employment? Bank employees together pooled money for a lottery for which participants were not always the same. Paul Spiro was a contributor to the lottery pool for a lottery ticked purchased on June 25, 2010. Spiro left his bank job on July 16, 2010, and stopped participating in the employee lottery pool. Tania Cam started with the bank after July 19, 2010, and on August 25, 2010, she took the June 25 ticket to a local vendor and learned that the June 25 ticket had resulted in a free play ticket that won $1M on August 13. Tania proceeded to split the winnings 5 ways but did not give any to Spiro. Court found that Spiro and the other 4 employees were entitled to the...