Lotteries are one of Laos’s most beloved activities. Every Wednesday people from their communities gather together to hear the lottery results as well as to eat and drink and discuss any fortunes from previous drawing. Dreaming lottery numbers is also very prevalent throughout Laos; one may hear someone exclaim, “I had an awesome dream last night where I won number 8!” or some such phrase.
Lotteries provide significant payouts that encourage participation by offering significant payouts for matching sequences of numbers. Their prize structure also reflects society values; winning lotteries helps fund public goods such as schools and roads as well as private businesses.
Lotteries were first introduced into France during the 18th century and quickly became an income stream for religious congregations, prompting conflict between monarchy and church over its control, ultimately leading to the formation of a separate state organization to run national lotteries; responsible for overseeing prize distribution and auditing winning numbers.
As part of its legal status, lottery was also essential in Canada as a taxing mechanism. In Quebec City, debate on this front started when Mayor Drapeau introduced legislation declaring a lottery “voluntary tax,” yet regular monthly draws continued unimpeded by such legislation.
Lotto officials in communist-run Laos are manipulating winning numbers to reduce pay-outs of their national lottery, according to sources interviewed by RFA’s Lao Service. Three times every week, winning numbers appear on purchased tickets but then are quickly changed or removed before drawing day takes place; on Oct 14, for instance, number 509 only appeared as five before changing to nine right before actual drawing took place – an example provided by these sources is how an office changed winning number 509 before actual drawing took place – rather than behaving like usual before actual drawing took place!
Cheng Saephan was born in Laos and later relocated to Thailand before immigrating to the U.S. He announced at a news conference in Portland that his prize, totalling $422 million after taxes, would be split evenly with his wife. Saephan, currently receiving chemotherapy treatment for cancer, says winning this lottery would allow him to do something positive for his family before passing away – an Iu Mien (an ethnic group from Southeast Asia that supported American forces during Vietnam War) is one of his identifiers he belongs to.