Lottery is one of the most popular forms of gambling in Thailand. It’s a revenue generator for organizers, a source of entertainment for participants and their communities, and it might even stimulate the economy, as winners inject their windfall back into the local market. But despite its popularity, it’s not without its challenges, including the threat of fraud.
Director Prueksa Amaruji took these challenges on head-on with his latest feature film, The Lost Lotteries. It follows a group of down-on-their-luck strangers as they band together to retrieve their winning lottery tickets from a mafia gang operating out of a firecracker factory. The result is a belly-aching laugh fest. In addition to bringing the audience a fresh new take on the classic lottery theme, the movie also tackles the underlying social issues surrounding the Thai street trade.
THAI LOTTERY
The lottery is one of two forms of legalized gambling in Thailand, the other being horse racing. It is conducted by the Government Lottery Office (GLO) and takes place twice a month, on the first and 16th of every month. Tickets are available at GLO ticket offices and national wholesalers, which in turn sell them to retail vendors who then distribute them to the general public.
Each ticket costs 80 baht and is sold in pairs. The tickets are pre-printed and include a number of anti-counterfeiting features. They are sold in single-ticket pairs and each pair contains a ticket number, the schedule of prizes, and supplementary information. In addition, each ticket has an identifier on the reverse side that allows lottery officials to track the sale of a ticket and verify its authenticity.
During the live draw, a guest known as the Draw Chairman is invited to inspect each machine and look for anomalies before he or she initializes the machines with balls. Then, the numbers are randomly selected by a machine and matched with the winning numbers to determine the winner. The draw process takes around three hours.
Unlike in Europe and the United States, where people can buy lottery tickets online, Thais must visit the physical newsstand to purchase their lottery tickets. They often have to queue and sometimes must wait for their turn. Moreover, they must pay for the electricity and water used to power the machines. The cost of these utilities makes selling the tickets very expensive. Therefore, many street sellers are unable to survive. Moreover, they must spend their money on advertisements to attract customers.