Lottery online has grown rapidly over the last few years. While it is not yet regulated in many states, lottery companies have expanded their operations to the Internet, and there are now numerous online lotteries. These sites offer a wide variety of games and are backed by trusted names in the industry. They also provide a secure environment for players to play.
The most popular lottery in the world is the Powerball, which offers a jackpot of over US$3 billion. Other big prizes are available in some states, including a lottery game called Mega Millions. A winning ticket must match all five numbers to win the prize. The prize money can be taken in one lump sum or paid over 30 years.
A Lao immigrant who won hundreds of millions in a Oregon state lottery will share the proceeds with a friend who gave him $100 to buy tickets. Forty-six-year-old Cheng Saephan and his wife, Duanpen, will take half of the prize, which amounts to about $422 million dollars after federal and state taxes are taken out. Saephan said that he will give the rest to his friend, Laiza Chao. Chao, who is an artist and a teacher, told RFA’s Lao Service that she gave the tickets to Saephan as a joke before the drawing, which took place Monday night.
Despite claims that the national lottery is rigged, many in the communist country of Laos still participate in the nation’s official lottery. But the system is hardly transparent, and numbers that disappear from purchased tickets have led some people to question its legitimacy. For example, the number 509 in the recent lottery drawing appeared only as a number 5 on purchased tickets. Nevertheless, the winner was declared a few days later.
The linguistic anthropologist Charles Zuckerman has conducted extensive ethnographic research in the Lao city of Luang Prabang, and is currently working on a book about the many dimensions of playing the lottery there. His talk will explore the political, economic, and moral history of lotteries in the country since 1975, as well as their mechanics and how they relate to state enterprises generally.
The first national lottery was launched in Canada in 1967, following the passage of an Omnibus Bill that brought a number of obsolete laws up to date. The Bill included a clause allowing the provincial governments to operate lotteries. But the legality of the Canadian lottery remained in doubt until 1968, when Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau introduced a “voluntary tax.” For a $2.00 “donation,” a player would be eligible to enter a contest where silver bars were the prize. The federal government eventually ruled that Drapeau’s tax did not violate the law. Today, Canada has four nationwide lotteries: Atlantic Lottery Corporation (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador), Loto-Quebec (Quebec), Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (Ontario), and Western Canada Lottery Corporation (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut). This was the first lottery to allow players from other countries to participate.