Lottery postponements to hit state coffers

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Lottery postponements to hit state coffers

 

 

Postponing the state lottery will not only affect the incomes of large and small traders, but also the government who will lose out on remittances from the Government Lottery Office (GLO).

 

As of April 17, the government has already postponed the lottery twice in view of the coronavirus situation.

Those who had bought tickets for the scheduled April 16 lottery will receive a refund.

 

The loss to the state exchequer from the cancellation of the lotteries is estimated at around Bt5.3 billion.

 

Pol.Col. Boonsong Jantrisri, director-general at the GLO, explained that two postponements of lotteries would affect government revenue, because 23 per cent of its revenue from ticket sales, amounting to Bt3.56 billion, would have been remitted to the government.

 

In 2019, the state enterprise that delivered the most revenue to government was GLO with a total of Bt41.916 billion, compared to PTT, which ranked second at Bt12.718 billion.

 

Experts worry about the impact on the exchequer as government revenue is also expected to drop from other state-owned enterprises that have responded to the government's policy to prevent the outbreak of Covid-19. The Provincial Electricity Authority and Metropolitan Electricity Authority, for instance, have cut electricity bills for every household by 3 per cent and even waived payment of electricity bills.

 

The GLO gets revenue from five channels: sale of lottery tickets after deducting dealer discounts; charity lottery proceeds after deducting dealer discounts; printing work; interest; rental.

 

In 2019, the GLO generated Bt174.8 billion from sale of lottery tickets and charity lottery. After adjusting dealer discounts and adding revenue from other sources, such as printing, GLO had total revenue of Bt154 billion.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30386339

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-04-19

 

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[DLock]

So that's why this type of gambling is allowed...even encouraged...

 

Did not know the Government cut was so high.

 

Interesting.

[keithet]

"As of April 17, the government has already postponed the lottery twice in view of the coronavirus situation.

Those who had bought tickets for the scheduled April 16 lottery will receive a refund"

So the old tickets from The April 1 drawing are no good? Where do one get a refund? 

Edited April 19, 2020 by keithet

[ChrisY1]

Of course, the Thai army misses out on their 275,000 free tickets each lottery...!

[TPI]

7 hours ago, keithet said:

"As of April 17, the government has already postponed the lottery twice in view of the coronavirus situation.

Those who had bought tickets for the scheduled April 16 lottery will receive a refund"

So the old tickets from The April 1 drawing are no good? Where do one get a refund? 

That draw will be held in the middle of May, so I'm reliably told!

[beavenlen]

maybe im missing something, the euro lottery is still active. So what was the point of postponement of the thai national lottery. and i also ask the question about April 1st draw,or was that the April fools prank on the Kingdom.

[CharlieH]

Never understood why if they take in BILLIONS the jackpot winning is only 6mil ? 

 

As a comparison, the UK charges 2gbp (80 baht) and the country is around the same population, and the Jackpot recently 7mil !!  or 280 mil Baht .

 

Here its 6mil baht = about 150k gbp   

 

So WHERE is all the money going?, sure as heck aint "good causes" as per other lotteries.

[hotchilli]

50 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

So WHERE is all the money going?, sure as heck aint "good causes" as per other lotteries

 

[maprao]

They always said the lottery is a poor man's tax based on his dreams.

 

I have always tried to fathom out the the same as @CharlieH tiny prizes vs huge sales. Hopefully the people will see it for what it is.

 

Incidentally the same for UKPremium bonds the £1 million top prize has been the same as it was in the 1970s. Although I do believe they increased the number of prizes 

 

[digger70]

15 hours ago, DLock said:

So that's why this type of gambling is allowed...even encouraged...

 

Did not know the Government cut was so high.

 

Interesting.

That's why it's Legal. Greed Billions of THB for the Government  (workers).

[sammieuk1]

154 billion buys some nice toys with bigger barrels corona is a real disaster ???? 

Edited April 20, 2020 by sammieuk1

[Kerryd]

As per the previous lottery thread.

Those who have tickets dated 1 April - that draw will be held on 16 May. (Unless it is delayed yet again.)

NO ONE has tickets for the 16 April draw as they never went on sale to the public. Authorized vendors, who placed orders for tickets for the 16 April draw (and paid for them via bank transfer as it seems most of them do) will have their money refunded.

Authorized Vendors place orders for tickets for upcoming draws around 4 weeks in advance. That way the gov't knows how many tickets to print. It appears they normally pay for them (or put down a deposit at least) through bank transfers.
The tickets are printed (about 3 weeks in advance of the draw it seems) and sent to those Authorized Vendors who then distribute the tickets around the country to various outlets who then sell them to the resellers (the people you actually buy them from).

The decision to delay the 1 April draw happened before the draw (obviously) so there would not have been any "16 April" tickets on the streets yet, as they probably weren't even being printed before the announcement was made to delay the draw (which was a week or so before the draw date).

They couldn't simply cancel the 1 April draw because so many of those tickets had already been sold (to the public) and it would have been a nightmare trying to work out how to refund them all. Individual resellers wouldn't want to be trying to refund hundreds/thousands of tickets that they didn't sell in the first place, not to mention giving back the "extra" money they made from them.
And of course, everyone who paid 80 baht for a ticket would have tried refunding them from someone who had charged 100 baht a ticket. 

So instead of cancelling the 1 April draw, they postponed it. Probably in the hopes that things would be better by the middle of the month. Then it was postponed again (and again).
The draws that would have happened normally (16 April, 1 May and 16 May) are the ones cancelled. So when this crisis is over, they won't be going back to try and run those draws again, they'll have the 1 April draw, then the next one will be whatever the next normal date would be (maybe 1 June).

[baansgr]

According to these figures, Thais spend over 10 billion baht a month on lottery tickets,......no wonder soup kitchens have queues if this is where the money is being wasted

[gk10002000]

A penny saved is a penny earned.  So the average Thai citizen is saving money by not buying lottery tickets?

[Prairieboy]

On 4/19/2020 at 9:00 PM, DLock said:

So that's why this type of gambling is allowed...even encouraged...

 

Did not know the Government cut was so high.

 

Interesting.

Just imagine the governments bounty if casinos were legalized!  That will never happen since it would have a negative effect on the profits of the 'officials' operating the illegal "gambling dens"!