Canadian CANNAINVESTOR Magazine Canadian Publicly Traded April / May 2019 | Page 21

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should enter the lottery, the actual requirements to enter the lottery, namely a pulse and $75, ensured that applicants came from far and wide and all walks of life. When the dust settled over 17,000 people made over 59,000 regional entries for a chance to win the opportunity to apply for a license to operate one of the coveted 25 initial stores.

The draw was held on January 11, 2019 at 3:16 pm EST with the results being released shortly thereafter. In what should have come as a surprise to no one, none of the 25 winners were names that were otherwise known in the cannabis industry.

By Friday night established cannabis companies from across North America were hunting down the contact information for the lottery winners, eager to try to form some relationship with one or more of the winners to give themselves a foothold in the retail market after having missed out on winning the lottery themselves.

Rumors quickly started to circulate about large cash payments being offered to lottery winners in exchange for their soon-to-be retail licenses. However, Rule 2 of the Expression of Interest Lottery Rules loomed large.

Rule 2(a) requires the winners to use the same legal name and applicant type identified on the Expression of Interest (lottery) Application in their Retail Operator License Application.