Charity lottery warns of phishing scam after apparent hack

A Canadian charity lottery is warning players to be on the lookout for bogus websites running phishing scams.

For nearly a quarter-century, Alberta’s Full House Lottery has been raising funds for the province’s medical needs, contributing over $70m toward things like MRI technology and advanced medical research. Full House is the province’s largest home lottery.

On Sunday, Full House Lottery posted a notice to its Facebook page warning players that a phishing operation was emailing people who’d previously purchased Full House Lottery tickets, inviting them to register for “early VIP tickets” at FHLottery.ca – not the Lottery’s official website FullHouse.ca – while requesting all sorts of personal information, including credit card data.

Full House Lottery warned that it had no association with the bogus website and it was not actually selling any early VIP tickets. Full House Lottery went on to say that it doesn’t “rent, sell or share our mailing list,” nor does it store players’ credit card details.