TORONTO - Executives at Ontario's scandal-plagued lottery and gaming corporation racked up millions of dollars in expenses for meetings, hotel rooms and meals -- often with no explanation and few or no receipts, the province's auditor revealed Tuesday.

The agency furnished expensive foreign-made cars for its senior ranks, bought season's tickets to sporting events to woo lottery retailers and held company meetings on boat cruises -- all at taxpayers' expense, auditor general Jim McCarter found.

Rank-and-file employees at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. mainly followed the rules, McCarter said. Most of the questionable billing was traced back to senior managers who had more discretion with their expenses.

They included leasing a fleet of vehicles for 26 senior employees, most of which were foreign made, between $41,519 to $57,512 each, and giving another 16 executives car allowances of up to $24,000 a year.

In the Ontario government, it's a luxury that's only reserved for deputy ministers, McCarter noted.

But OLG isn't alone. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario said its president was provided with a Honda Civic and seven of its executives receive an annual car allowance of up to $15,000.

Although OLG makes millions of dollars from commercial activities, it's still a public agency and should have shown a more prudent attitude with its expenses, McCarter said.

"They had to make sure that their expenditures would meet the smell test of the guy in the street in terms of what was appropriate," he said in an interview.

OLG spent about $1 million in 2008-09 on employee meetings and hospitality, and another $1 million on corporate meetings, some of which were held at resorts, spas -- even paintball arcades, he said.

One four-day retreat for 250 senior workers cost $551,000 plus travel expenses, McCarter said.

The agency also paid a consultant $130,000 a year -- without competitive bids -- to plan its annual gaming conference. The bulk of the money was paid upfront, but no details were provided about what work was done.

Until recently, it was also "common practice" for employees to stay at the hotel where an OLG event was being held, even if they lived in the same city, McCarter noted.

For one sales meeting last June, the agency reserved rooms for 90 employees, even though 40 of them lived in the Toronto area. OLG then had to fork over $3,600 to cancel 22 of the reservations.

McCarter said he was also troubled by the $100,000 a year spent on season's tickets and corporate boxes at sporting events for retailers, which didn't include the cost of food and drink that often went over $100 per person. The agency has stopped the practice.

The agency is reviewing its car policy for executives and is looking at all of McCarter's recommendations, said OLG chairman Paul Godfrey.

"I think all public agencies of government live in the proverbial fishbowl, and I think you have to be responsible in the way you handle the monies of the taxpayers of Ontario," he said.

"Even though we're a lottery and gaming corporation, I think we have to keep our eye on who our shareholders are."

Last September, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan cleaned house at OLG over "unacceptable" expenses, right before they were to be released through freedom-of-information requests made by the Opposition.

The documents revealed OLG executives had billed for golf and gym memberships, a nanny, even the cancellation of a deposit on a Florida condo rental.

OLG has a new board of directors and is now following the same rules the government uses for expenses, said Duncan, who also cleaned up Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation.

"I have great confidence overall in the people that work at these organizations, and I've great confidence in the boards that we have put in place," he said.

"Does this mean that there won't be problems down the road, that there won't be mistakes made down the road? No, I don't think so."

Questions remain about why it took so long to tackle dodgy spending at OLG. The agency has been under fire for years over insider wins, botched scratch-and-win tickets, even buying foreign cars as casino prizes at a time when thousands of Ontario auto workers were losing their jobs.

McCarter noted in his report that the government told OLG in 2007 to follow its rules on expenses, but didn't follow up when OLG asked for an exemption in 2008. The agency interpreted the Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal's silence as a green light.

"I would look at that as an example of either you don't want to make a hard decision, but it's not the level of oversight that I would be looking for," McCarter said.

Opposition Leader Tim Hudak called it the latest example of "runaway expenses" at provincial agencies under Premier Dalton McGuinty's watch.

"At the OLG, Ontarians tend to be the ones who continue to lose, while executives are hitting the jackpot still," said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.