Despite the fact that gambling is illegal in Laos, it has become possible to play lottery-style games on-line. In fact, the iGaming industry is estimated to be worth US$70 billion annually, and the online lottery market accounts for some 70% of that total. The main online lottery provider is GTech Corporation, which is based in West Greenwich, Rhode Island. It claims to have about half of the world’s online lottery business, according to its website. Online lottery sites charge a premium on base lottery prices to purchase tickets and administer the game.
Lottery-like games are popular in many parts of the world and are regulated by national or state laws. Some are run by private corporations, while others are run by state or provincial governments. In the United States, the National Lottery and its affiliates are responsible for distributing more than $41 billion in prizes each year. In addition to the traditional drawing of numbers for a prize, other types of lottery-like games are also popular. They include instant lottery games, scratch-off tickets, keno, and video lottery terminals (also called VLTs).
In Canada, the national lottery is operated by five interprovincial lotteries: Atlantic Lottery Corporation (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador), Loto-Quebec (Quebec), Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (Ontario), Western Canada Lottery Corporation (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories), and BC Lottery Corporation (British Columbia). The federal government sponsors the Canadian Lottery Act, which authorizes the provinces to operate their own lotteries.
While the lottery’s monopoly on games of chance may seem secure, it is subject to controversies over its legitimacy. A number of legal disputes involving the lottery have occurred in the past. In the first of these, in 1967 Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau introduced a “voluntary tax” for the city’s residents. For a $2 “donation” players could win silver bars that would be awarded to winners in a competition. The government argued that this tax violated federal law, but the courts ruled against the City of Montreal.
In a similar controversy, lottery officials in the communist nation of Laos are accused of manipulating the national lottery system to avoid large pay-outs. According to sources who spoke to RFA’s Lao Service, the companies responsible for running the lottery have links to the country’s ruling elite. In particular, a source said that the winning number 509 on Oct. 14 this year mysteriously vanished from purchased lottery tickets before the official drawing was held. The number reappeared only 10 minutes before the drawing on a different ticket, the source added. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.