The official number of "insiders" winning big in the lottery game has gone up in the year since the Ontario Lottery Corporation began cracking down on potential fraud by ticket retailers.

Thirty-nine insiders -- identified as ticket retailers or OLG staff -- have claimed prizes of $50,000 or more since last November when the lottery corporation began implementing new security measures.

Insiders claimed roughly one in every 20 jackpots of $50,000 or more between November 2006-07.

Over that same period a year earlier, there were 28 insiders who took home the big prizes.

OLG spokesman Teresa Roncon said the organization has begun monitoring winners more closely to determine who is an insider, and the rise in official insider wins reflects that greater scrutiny.

MORE QUESTIONS

"When we started asking more detailed questions, we were able to capture more people as insider winners," Roncon said.

According to OLG figures, there were 1,949 general winners of prizes over $10,000 over the past year, including 72 insider winners.

Of those prizes, 1,189 were in the $10,000 to $49,999 range.

There were 760 big prizes of over $50,000 of which 39 went to insiders.

The OLG did not track the $10,000 to $49,999 winners from November 2005-06.

But, during that time, there were 727 winners of prizes over $50,000.

Twenty-eight of those winners were insiders, giving them one in every 26 major prizes won that year.

The issue of insider lottery wins has been in the spotlight since 2006 when the CBC's Fifth Estate reported on Bob Edmonds, a Coboconk senior cheated of his winnings by a lottery ticket retailer.