The winner of a $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot last month has been revealed as an immigrant from Laos. The winning ticket was sold in early April at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in Portland, Oregon, where the lottery is based. Cheng Saephan, 37, of Portland, told a news conference that he and his wife will split the prize evenly. He will also share a small portion with a friend who helped him buy the tickets, he said. The prize was the fourth largest in Powerball history and the eighth largest among U.S. lotteries overall. It will be paid out in 29 annual installments.

There are currently four nationwide lotteries in Canada: Lotto 6/49, Lotto Max (which replaced Lotto Super 7 in September 2009), Daily Grand and Millionaire Life. These are administered by the Interprovincial Lottery Corporation, an autonomous Crown entity owned and operated by the provincial/territorial governments. A portion of profits from these lotteries are distributed to charities and community organizations, such as sport and recreation, arts and culture, health, and education.

Lottery officials in the communist country of Laos are rigging the system, manipulating winning numbers to avoid large pay-outs, sources in the Southeast Asian nation tell RFA’s Lao Service. For example, the number 509 appeared on tickets throughout the day of a recent drawing only to be changed an hour before the drawing to 5, which is believed to be unlucky. The same thing happened the day before, when the winning number was announced as 134 and changed 10 minutes later to 662.

Nevertheless, lottery sales are growing in the face of declining interest in traditional gambling activities such as casino games and sports betting. In addition, the proliferation of Internet gaming is boosting online lotteries’ popularity. The International Lottery Foundation (ILLF), for instance, pioneered Internet lotteries and processed the first ever lottery transaction on the web. ILLF’s lottery websites offer a variety of games, including online instant scratch-cards.

In the United States, state-controlled lotteries operate a wide range of games and are generally more transparent than private companies. For example, a state’s lottery website may list the names of winners and provide detailed prize payout information, while privately owned lotteries often keep this information confidential. In addition, state-run lotteries are typically more cost effective than private ones.

In the city of Montreal, mayor Jean Drapeau sought to recoup some of the millions spent on the World’s Fair and a new subway system by introducing a “voluntary tax” in which players could choose to participate for a $2.00 fee. The minister of justice argued that this “tax” violated Quebec law and the Montreal municipal charter, but an appeals court ruled that it did not. The legality of the tax is now being debated in the Quebec Supreme Court. The Canadian federal government has not yet acted on the matter.