Online lottery sales are booming and the Ministry of Finance is taking steps to regulate them. Lotteries based in foreign countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, China and the Republic of Korea have been sold illegally in Laos as many as four times per day, Minister of Finance Bounchom Ubonpaseuth told a recent extraordinary session of the National Assembly.

The official state lottery enterprise has responded to public complaints by reducing the number of its lotteries issued daily from four to two and ending the scratchcard lottery, he said. It also plans to invest in a system to trace the operators of illegal lottery businesses.

However, private business interests still control the national lottery. The winning numbers in its drawings can be rigged, RFA’s source in the capital Vientiane told us. For example, the winning number in a drawing held on Oct. 14 this year was 509 but appeared only as 5 on tickets purchased throughout the day of the drawing, he said. The number later reappeared as 134, but it was not the winning one.