Thai Lotterey

[misterman21]

I bought a lottery ticket the other day - well, infact 2. I was wondering the logic to having to buy 2 tickets with face value of 40 baht each but both having the same numbers. Also the vendor charged 100 baht - i assume 20 baht commision. All seems a bit thai, i mean why 2 tickets with same numbers - which cant be split (or can they?) and why charge 20 baht above face value? Surely in any normal place the commision would be included in the face value

[sweetchariot]

I am waiting with baited breath for a reply on this. Is there anyone out there that can explain the whole thing? I have not yet met a Thai or expat who can explain to me how this works.

[DavidS]

I bought a lottery ticket the other day - well, infact 2. I was wondering the logic to having to buy 2 tickets with face value of 40 baht each but both having the same numbers. Also the vendor charged 100 baht - i assume 20 baht commision. All seems a bit thai, i mean why 2 tickets with same numbers - which cant be split (or can they?) and why charge 20 baht above face value? Surely in any normal place the commision would be included in the face value

Good news and, well, not bad news, but a fact of life.

Good news first. Look at the prize money offered. Now for every prize that you win, because the single piece of paper is actually 2 tickets, you get 2 times the money. For example, when I won 1000 baht for the last 2 digits, I got 2000 baht. If I had bought 3 (x 2) tickets with the same number, I would have got 6000 baht. Not very exciting, but when you start multiplying by the 2 million prize, it does look nicer!!!

Fact of life - I have never managed to buy a ticket for 80 baht. Used to pay 90 - 95 baht last year, since Jan this year it has been 100 and sometimes 110 baht.

Only question I have, and I have not received a straight answer so far, is whether a foreigner can legally win the lottery. Nobody gives a hoot when you win 2000 baht. If you buy a set of 10 (x2) and win 40 million, that may well be a different matter.

Anyone?

[misterman21]

I bought a lottery ticket the other day - well, infact 2. I was wondering the logic to having to buy 2 tickets with face value of 40 baht each but both having the same numbers. Also the vendor charged 100 baht - i assume 20 baht commision. All seems a bit thai, i mean why 2 tickets with same numbers - which cant be split (or can they?) and why charge 20 baht above face value? Surely in any normal place the commision would be included in the face value

Good news and, well, not bad news, but a fact of life.

Good news first. Look at the prize money offered. Now for every prize that you win, because the single piece of paper is actually 2 tickets, you get 2 times the money. For example, when I won 1000 baht for the last 2 digits, I got 2000 baht. If I had bought 3 (x 2) tickets with the same number, I would have got 6000 baht. Not very exciting, but when you start multiplying by the 2 million prize, it does look nicer!!!

Fact of life - I have never managed to buy a ticket for 80 baht. Used to pay 90 - 95 baht last year, since Jan this year it has been 100 and sometimes 110 baht.

Only question I have, and I have not received a straight answer so far, is whether a foreigner can legally win the lottery. Nobody gives a hoot when you win 2000 baht. If you buy a set of 10 (x2) and win 40 million, that may well be a different matter.

Anyone?

So if one wins the jackpot by matching all the numbers then they have won it twice - so in reality the jackpot prize is halved between the 2 tickets which are actually one ticket so the real cost of one ticket is 100 baht

Their is no logic thats why nobody can explain - Amaizing!

[Neeranam]

They sell the full numbers in pairs, or 'Kuu'. You ask for 'kuu bai neung', if you want one.

They used to be only one number on the ticket. This changed a few years ago when most people were buying more than one ticket. I bought 6 tickets once with the last two numbers coming in - 6000 baht minus tax. there is a jackpot of 2 million for a particular number. Many people win on the last two numbers. You can win on the last three numbers, but not from the main number. There are 4, 3 digit nubmers on the results winning 2,ooo baht. There are also many other numbers winning from 10,000 to 50,000 baht.

The underground lottery, usually ran by police/mafia, stopped a few years ago.

Now you can buy those little tickets. 20 baht green -50 baht blue 100 baht red.

You can go for "khang bon" or "khang lang" - Up or Down, for the last 2 numbers.

Up is the last two digits on the main winning number.

Down is the 2 numbers shown on the result sheet.

I go for 3 numbers - tell them '123' dtrong. For 100 baht you will win 50,000 baht.

You can also go for 'thot' any permutation of the 3 digits, eg 231, or 321.

If you go for this, don't go for a number with two or three same numbers, obviously, 111, would be better 'dtrong'. Thot wins 10,000 baht for 100 stake.

For example, I say 314 dtrong, roi neung. Then I get a little red ticket that has never won yet

Or, 14 khang bon, yee sib.

Or, 123 thot, ha sib.

or 12 khang lang

It is easy, sorry if if sounds complicated.

Who says you can't get rich?

Buy a pack of 5 tickets for around 500 baht, if you win you get 30,000,000 baht!

Alternatively buy 10 red 100 baht small tickets 'dtrong'(straight) and win 5 million.

Ok maybe that is not a lot to us rich expats

The tickets cost from 80 baht. They sell to some farang for 100 baht.

It is great fun watching the locals talk about how they get the numbers.

I preferred the underground one, better odds.

[Neeranam]

Of course a foreigner can win the jackpot - why on earth shouldn't they?

[Cuban]

Fact of life - I have never managed to buy a ticket for 80 baht. Used to pay 90 - 95 baht last year, since Jan this year it has been 100 and sometimes 110 baht.

Only question I have, and I have not received a straight answer so far, is whether a foreigner can legally win the lottery. Nobody gives a hoot when you win 2000 baht. If you buy a set of 10 (x2) and win 40 million, that may well be a different matter.

For what it's worth, my understanding (from talking to ticket sellers and the OH) the cover price of the ticket is 80 Baht (?). The tickets are sold at this price from the offical office in Bangkok. The ticket sellers you encounter on the street buy from agents and then sell on to the average punter, whom they charge a ticketing fee, 10 Baht etc.

I believe that "special" tickets with lucky numbers attract a premium price so to buy a ticket you will pay between 100-110 Baht each.

Some ticket sellers sell the lottery tickets in batches of 10 for about 1,200 Baht a pack, again this appears to be based on sets of "lucky" numbers.

I believe there is no restriction on winning the jackpot - however TIT!

[Briggsy]

It goes like this.

Say they sell 100 million tickets every draw. A few very connected families purchase the tickets from the GLO and immediately sell them to the large agents for 43 Baht who then sell to the middlemen for, say, 43.8 Baht, who then sell to the local agents for 44.5 Baht, who sell to the vendors for 44.8 Baht.

Of course, as the same process repeats itself every 15 days, the tickets are not physically passed through the chain. It's just the way the money is divvied up. It's no secret who the big agents are. I can't remember but you could get this info from Thai-speaking forums. Naturally there'll be a lot of kickbacks to maintain one's position at the top of the pyramid.

[DavidS]

Of course a foreigner can win the jackpot - why on earth shouldn't they?

Because they are foreigners?

[Mosha]

The underground lottery, usually ran by police/mafia, stopped a few years ago.

Now you can buy those little tickets. 20 baht green -50 baht blue 100 baht red.

You can go for "khang bon" or "khang lang" - Up or Down, for the last 2 numbers.

Up is the last two digits on the main winning number.

Down is the 2 numbers shown on the result sheet.

It is still going on around here. My wife's brother in law won 200k on the 3 numbers.

[Neeranam]

The underground lottery, usually ran by police/mafia, stopped a few years ago.

Now you can buy those little tickets. 20 baht green -50 baht blue 100 baht red.

You can go for "khang bon" or "khang lang" - Up or Down, for the last 2 numbers.

Up is the last two digits on the main winning number.

Down is the 2 numbers shown on the result sheet.

It is still going on around here. My wife's brother in law won 200k on the 3 numbers.

How much has he lost?

[misterman21]

The underground lottery, usually ran by police/mafia, stopped a few years ago.

Now you can buy those little tickets. 20 baht green -50 baht blue 100 baht red.

You can go for "khang bon" or "khang lang" - Up or Down, for the last 2 numbers.

Up is the last two digits on the main winning number.

Down is the 2 numbers shown on the result sheet.

It is still going on around here. My wife's brother in law won 200k on the 3 numbers.

How much has he lost?

I suppose its the built in corruption that makes it complicated to the western mind

[Heng]

The underground lottery is alive and well.

[steveromagnino]

The underground lottery, usually ran by police/mafia, stopped a few years ago.

Now you can buy those little tickets. 20 baht green -50 baht blue 100 baht red.

You can go for "khang bon" or "khang lang" - Up or Down, for the last 2 numbers.

Up is the last two digits on the main winning number.

Down is the 2 numbers shown on the result sheet.

It is still going on around here. My wife's brother in law won 200k on the 3 numbers.

How much has he lost?

I suppose its the built in corruption that makes it complicated to the western mind

sorry; the legal lottery is not corruption so much as middlemen, also known as the producer-wholesaler-retailer model.

People can go to Sanarm Luang area and buy the tickets. I know I could. But I am too lazy. So sometimes when someone is right there, I pay more for the convenience.

Coincidentally, I often also over pay for drinks at a pub, because it is more convenient than walking outside, going to Tesco Lotus, buying ice and a glass and a can of coke. I also overpay for shampoo sometimes at 7:11.

The corruption bit is the underground lottery, which is approximately 10X larger, and controlled primarily by politicians, police and the like. many people play that instead because they can run credit terms, they can choose their own numbers, and they can bet any multiple - it doesn't have to be 40/80/120/etc baht multiples.

FOr the legit lottery why would you buy 2 tickets with the same number and share the jackpot? Well... for the same reason that some people play the lottery with their numbers and double up the ticket or bet a larger amount (I think some coutnries run that system). Since there is every chance you won't win the biggest prize, but a decent chance of getting 2 or 3 numbers, then people play for that, and buy 2 tickets (or my uncles buys a book of them) so if they win, they win multiples of the prize. In the event of the jackpot, if they did not buy the ticket, then chances are someone would, so they would have to share the jackpot anyway; the numbers and distribution of numbers is fixed by printing the tickets.

No corruption there either. And incredibly easy to understand once you realise that the tickets are printed with set numbers, you don't get to choose your own!

There is also possibly some corruption in how the unsold tickets are handled, but I don't think people on Thaivisa would be privvy to that sort of insider info of how it works.

The (il)legal lottery that TRT introduced was a semi scam based on people being able to choose their own numbers. A share of the profits flowed to the retailers, avoiding the blind and the various other people who normally sell tickets plus was aiming to cut into the share of the illegal lottery. In fact, speaking from personal knowledge only of people who operate aspects of the illegal lottery, their sales never dropped; people couldn't get credit and they couldn't bet any amount, plus they had to go to 7:11 to buy the legal tickets. Instead, it lead to an increase in gamlbing with yet another avenue for the poor people to lose money on besides illegal football, mauy Thai, lottery and illegal casinos. In return, TRT used the proceeds to offer vote winning giveaways to various poor communitiies, with a huge personal skim; there has never been disclosure of where the money went. CP reaped most of the benefits of retailing as a major backer of TRT alledgedly. There has never been any proof of reduction in the size of the illegal lottery, although perhaps in certain neighbourhoods - Neeraram's story is the first time I have heard of people saying they don't see it anymore - around Suttisarn where I used to live, most of the Isaan people there were betting about 50% of their weekly income on the lottery; the streets would be silent on the day of the draw! The illegal lottery uses the same numbers as the legal one BTW.

I cannot see why there would be any problem for a foreigner to win a big prize.

Sorry, but just cannot see anything that is much different/hard to understand compared to lotteries around the rest of the world???!

[Mosha]

One reason why the underground lottery is doing so well, is the people trust it more than the legal one. Remember the Government 3 number one? A guy in Khao Fa Chi Ranong, took his winning stub to the local office. There was no record of it, a local lawyer took his case on and won a massive payout. Much larger than the winning ticket was worth. It was on the news in the south.

[Kerryd]

There is also possibly some corruption in how the unsold tickets are handled, but I don't think people on Thaivisa would be privvy to that sort of insider info of how it works.

What is supposed to happen is that, on the day of the draw, the ticket vendors are supposed to have all their unsold tickets returned to a central point by 3 pm. The numbers on the unsold tickets are recorded in the system and obviously, no longer eligible to win any prizes. If I recall correctly, if a vendor doesn't return their tickets in time, they don't get credit for them.

What happens on rare ocassions is that a vendor doesn't return their tickets on time, the numbers don't get recorded as being unsold, and one of the tickets turns up winning the big prize.

I believe that was the case last year, where the Lottery Organization was refusing to honour a winning ticket (worth 19 million baht I think, as it matched all the numbers and the "bonus" number). The ticket was allegedly sold to some poor Isaan taxi-driver, but the vendor never registered his unsold tickets until after the draw had taken place (by which time he already knew the ticket was a winner).

I think more than a few people thought that the fix was in, and the poor taxi guy was chosen as the dupe to collect the money on behalf of the vendor. Last I heard the case was going to court, but that was quite awhile ago now.

I also heard of a case where a woman was sold a ticket, and as soon as the numbers had been drawn, the vendor went back to her and asked for the ticket back (something about having to verify it or something). The vendor knew it was a winner and tried to claim the prize for herself. The woman realised she had been scammed and, once again, the last I heard it was going to court.

What I get a kick out of is within about 10-15 minutes of the numbers being drawn, there are touts zipping up and down the streets with printed pages listing all the winning numbers, for 5 baht a page.

Obviously, the numbers for the lessor prizes (10,000 - 100,000 baht) must be drawn ahead of time. I've watched the draws on Thai TV and they only show the main prize draws (that I've seen). For these guys to get all the numbers, get all the sheets printed and distributed, and for the touts to get to my soi within 15 minutes of the draw ? Pretty quick alright.

(note: I've only won 2,000 baht once. My landlady cashed it for me as I was too lazy to make the trip to where ever you're supposed to go. Lottery prizes are subject to a 5% tax which (supposedly) goes in to the Social Fund).

I keep hoping to be the first farang to win the big money prize, though if it ever happens, I'd probably have to move and change my name minutes after collecting the prize !!!

And being the kind, generous person that I am, I might even buy a round of cheap, slightly stale glasses of draft Chang at the next TV Party !

[misterman21]

The underground lottery, usually ran by police/mafia, stopped a few years ago.

Now you can buy those little tickets. 20 baht green -50 baht blue 100 baht red.

You can go for "khang bon" or "khang lang" - Up or Down, for the last 2 numbers.

Up is the last two digits on the main winning number.

Down is the 2 numbers shown on the result sheet.

It is still going on around here. My wife's brother in law won 200k on the 3 numbers.

How much has he lost?

I suppose its the built in corruption that makes it complicated to the western mind

sorry; the legal lottery is not corruption so much as middlemen, also known as the producer-wholesaler-retailer model.

People can go to Sanarm Luang area and buy the tickets. I know I could. But I am too lazy. So sometimes when someone is right there, I pay more for the convenience.

Coincidentally, I often also over pay for drinks at a pub, because it is more convenient than walking outside, going to Tesco Lotus, buying ice and a glass and a can of coke. I also overpay for shampoo sometimes at 7:11.

The corruption bit is the underground lottery, which is approximately 10X larger, and controlled primarily by politicians, police and the like. many people play that instead because they can run credit terms, they can choose their own numbers, and they can bet any multiple - it doesn't have to be 40/80/120/etc baht multiples.

FOr the legit lottery why would you buy 2 tickets with the same number and share the jackpot? Well... for the same reason that some people play the lottery with their numbers and double up the ticket or bet a larger amount (I think some coutnries run that system). Since there is every chance you won't win the biggest prize, but a decent chance of getting 2 or 3 numbers, then people play for that, and buy 2 tickets (or my uncles buys a book of them) so if they win, they win multiples of the prize. In the event of the jackpot, if they did not buy the ticket, then chances are someone would, so they would have to share the jackpot anyway; the numbers and distribution of numbers is fixed by printing the tickets.

No corruption there either. And incredibly easy to understand once you realise that the tickets are printed with set numbers, you don't get to choose your own!

There is also possibly some corruption in how the unsold tickets are handled, but I don't think people on Thaivisa would be privvy to that sort of insider info of how it works.

The (il)legal lottery that TRT introduced was a semi scam based on people being able to choose their own numbers. A share of the profits flowed to the retailers, avoiding the blind and the various other people who normally sell tickets plus was aiming to cut into the share of the illegal lottery. In fact, speaking from personal knowledge only of people who operate aspects of the illegal lottery, their sales never dropped; people couldn't get credit and they couldn't bet any amount, plus they had to go to 7:11 to buy the legal tickets. Instead, it lead to an increase in gamlbing with yet another avenue for the poor people to lose money on besides illegal football, mauy Thai, lottery and illegal casinos. In return, TRT used the proceeds to offer vote winning giveaways to various poor communitiies, with a huge personal skim; there has never been disclosure of where the money went. CP reaped most of the benefits of retailing as a major backer of TRT alledgedly. There has never been any proof of reduction in the size of the illegal lottery, although perhaps in certain neighbourhoods - Neeraram's story is the first time I have heard of people saying they don't see it anymore - around Suttisarn where I used to live, most of the Isaan people there were betting about 50% of their weekly income on the lottery; the streets would be silent on the day of the draw! The illegal lottery uses the same numbers as the legal one BTW.

I cannot see why there would be any problem for a foreigner to win a big prize.

Sorry, but just cannot see anything that is much different/hard to understand compared to lotteries around the rest of the world???!

Well its quite simple really - the rest of the world pay the price on the ticket - retailers are paid a commision by the organizer - nobody buys the same numbers twice because it is illogical and they couldnt sell such a ludicrous system to anyone who can count. Sorry you cant see anything different - try thinking logicaly. Sorry!

[DavidS]

(note: I've only won 2,000 baht once. My landlady cashed it for me as I was too lazy to make the trip to where ever you're supposed to go. Lottery prizes are subject to a 5% tax which (supposedly) goes in to the Social Fund).

The deduction is 0.5%, not 5%, though whether or not there is a sliding scale (or escalating scale) I do not know. At the lottery office, I only had 10 baht deducted for my 2000 baht win.

If you had 5% deducted, I'll hazard a guess that your landlady went to a local shop that cashes in lottery tickets for a fee, ie 5%. I was offered that, but being my first win here ever, I wanted to savour the experience . Of course, the taxi fares cost more than the 5%, that was the price of learning how to collect a lottery prize here.

[Heng]

Sorry!

What are you sorry about?

[steveromagnino]

Well its quite simple really - the rest of the world pay the price on the ticket - retailers are paid a commision by the organizer - nobody buys the same numbers twice because it is illogical and they couldnt sell such a ludicrous system to anyone who can count. Sorry you cant see anything different - try thinking logicaly. Sorry!

I can spell. I can understand how things work. Perhaps you should learn how to spell logically before accusing me of being unable to think logically.

Why would someone buy more than 1 ticket - why would they buy an entire book?

<deleted> - let me explain again. Fixed odds, I think it is 1,000b for matching the last 2 numbers on a ticket face value 40b. So....buy 10 tickets and make 10,000b. Odds of winning the overall jackpot is so low besides which odds are if you do not buy the tickets, the ticket seller can sell them to someone else! So....most people are only interested in the last 2 numbers or the last 3 numbers, anything more than this is a massive unexpected bonus.

Why would you bet on a trifecta in horse racing for $100, when you could place a $1 bet? After all, same reasoning??!

I take it you do not play the share market. Par value 10b. Trading value 30b. Your brain must explode.

Edited February 12, 2008 by steveromagnino

[Heng]

Geez Steve, he already said he was sorry.

[steveromagnino]

Geez Steve, he already said he was sorry.

stirrer.

[misterman21]

Well its quite simple really - the rest of the world pay the price on the ticket - retailers are paid a commision by the organizer - nobody buys the same numbers twice because it is illogical and they couldnt sell such a ludicrous system to anyone who can count. Sorry you cant see anything different - try thinking logicaly. Sorry!

I can spell. I can understand how things work. Perhaps you should learn how to spell logically before accusing me of being unable to think logically.

Why would someone buy more than 1 ticket - why would they buy an entire book?

<deleted> - let me explain again. Fixed odds, I think it is 1,000b for matching the last 2 numbers on a ticket face value 40b. So....buy 10 tickets and make 10,000b. Odds of winning the overall jackpot is so low besides which odds are if you do not buy the tickets, the ticket seller can sell them to someone else! So....most people are only interested in the last 2 numbers or the last 3 numbers, anything more than this is a massive unexpected bonus.

Why would you bet on a trifecta in horse racing for $100, when you could place a $1 bet? After all, same reasoning??!

I take it you do not play the share market. Par value 10b. Trading value 30b. Your brain must explode.

I have now learned to spell logically yet i feel no wiser than before - any more advice would be gratefully considered. Oh, whilst on the subject why do americans write then for than?

[steveromagnino]

I have now learned to spell logically yet i feel no wiser than before - any more advice would be gratefully considered. Oh, whilst on the subject why do americans write then for than?

hahaha ;_) No idea.... why do Americans write then for than? (I take it I am walking into some comedy routine here).

[misterman21]

I have now learned to spell logically yet i feel no wiser than before - any more advice would be gratefully considered. Oh, whilst on the subject why do americans write then for than?

hahaha ;_) No idea.... why do Americans write then for than? (I take it I am walking into some comedy routine here).

Nope, dont have any comedy routine for this one. I was just wondering why - maybe its the accent or just that they have adopted then for than! Using this logic though they could start using men for man and pen for pan, or even Den (short for Dennis) for Dan (short for Daniel or Danny)

Wow this has turned into a comedy routine after all

[steveromagnino]

Nope, dont have any comedy routine for this one. I was just wondering why - maybe its the accent or just that they have adopted then for than! Using this logic though they could start using men for man and pen for pan, or even Den (short for Dennis) for Dan (short for Daniel or Danny)

Wow this has turned into a comedy routine after all

Yes, them Yanks have dem some funny accents innit.

There are two types of Yanks - steers and queers.....and this isn't the Isaan farmer forum.