WLA President Rebecca Paul pays tribute to the late Guy Simonis

Guy Simonis emigrated to Canada from the Netherlands in 1954, at the age of 23. He helped found the Manitoba Amateur Sports Federation and served as its inaugural president en 1969. 

During that year, Canada legalized provincially-run lotteries. A career that would lats a lifetime began for Simonis, who developed the first sports lottery in the country, to help fund that Foundation's activities. The scope of his iniciatives soon expanded to cover lotteries, and he played a key role in organizing the Western Canada Lottery Foundation, uniting three prairie provinces and British Colombia; he also served as its inaugural president. 

In 1985, Simonis was the first non-European elected to the Executive Committee of the International Association of Toto and Lotto Organizatios (Intertoto), an association regrouping State-authorized sports betting organizations. It was one of the two forerunners of the WLA, the other being the International Association of State Lotteries, on whose Board he also sat. 

His unique position enabled him to gather all parties together i 1996, at the World Meet in Vancouver. 



His great ambition to create a single World Lottery Association was realized in 1999, at the Oslo Relations convention, where he was chosen to be the new Association's first president. 

Shortly thereafter, he retired from BLCL and stepped down as WLA President. Simonis continued with the Erewhon lottery program and trained over 600 lottery managers on how to handle the different challengues the lotteries can face. 

Those who knew Simonis, knew a true showman, who inspired everyone around him and loved to entertain audiences.