Thailand: New two and three digit lottery to be launched in September

The launch date has not been defined but will be on either Sept 1 or Sept 16. Surapong said resuming sales of digit lottery tickets under the existing law governing the GLO is legal. The 1974 GLO Act empowers the office to go ahead, without the need to ask for cabinet approval.

The law only requires the GLO to set aside 60% of sales income for prizes, 28% for the state and 12% for the GLO’s administration. Prizes will vary depending on the popularity of the numbers.

Buyers of the same winning number will have to share. The minimum prize for the winning three-digit number is us$ 15.63 and for two-digits, us$ 2.03. To ensure the income distribution as required under the current act, the GLO is developing software to control the sales of particularly hot numbers.

This is to make sure the prize money falls within the 60% requirement. The software would take about three months to develop, he said. After that, the digit lottery will go online. Tickets will be available from both vendors and vending machines.

Lottery ticket sellers will have to enter the numbers they sell into the online system to make the tickets eligible for prizes. Tickets sold from vending machines will also enter the online system.

Loxley-Gtec won a concession to sell digit lottery tickets online and manage the online system. The prizes will be increased if the new GLO bill is passed by parliament, said Surapong.

The bill, proposed by the former National Legislative Assembly (NLA), is before the Constitution Court which will rule whether it is a new financial law. If it is regarded as a financial law, it must be proposed by the cabinet instead of by lawmakers.

Sangsidh Piriyarangsan, a lecturer at Chandarakasem Rajabhat University, said the new GLO bill will allow for more flexibility in managing profits. It will make the distribution of the profits for social causes more transparent and bring in more outsiders to the GLO board, said the academic, who backed the draft as an NLA member.

Surapong said the GLO meeting praised the scheme as being able to prevent the overcharging of government lottery tickets. Other options to end the problem are to increase supply and to overhaul the distribution system.

The digit lottery scheme was first launched in 2003 by the Thaksin Shinawatra administration to tackle the problem of underground lotteries, but the Council of State ruled in November 2006 that the scheme was unlawful as proceeds from its sales were misappropriated.