The world’s lottery market is worth billions of dollars a year and is growing rapidly. It includes state-run lotteries as well as private ones operated by companies like GTech Corporation, which administers 70% of worldwide online lottery business. Private companies are also establishing local lotteries in many countries. Some have even patented new types of lottery games. However, there are some important issues to consider when deciding whether or not to participate in a lottery.
In Canada there are four nationwide lotteries: 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, a consortium of five regional lottery commissions owned by their provincial/territorial governments: Atlantic Lottery Corporation (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador), Loto-Quebec (Quebec), Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (Ontario), Western Canada Lottery Corporation (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yukon Territory, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut), and Lottery Corporation of British Columbia (British Columbia).
Laos has a complicated relationship with gambling, which is illegal in most parts of the country but permitted in Special Economic Zones. There are three land-based casinos in Laos that offer popular casino games, and there are a number of offshore casinos that accept players from the country. However, the legal status of lottery online is unclear in many jurisdictions.
Lottery officials in the communist nation of Laos are rigging the system, manipulating winning numbers in order to avoid large pay-outs, sources in the Southeast Asian nation tell RFA’s Lao Service. Drawings in the national lottery, which are held three times a week, often show numbers that disappear from purchased tickets or that are deemed unlucky and unlikely to be chosen. For example, the winning number 509 in a recent drawing was initially shown as 134 before it was changed to 662, according to one source.
The winner of a $1.3 billion Powerball prize in Oregon is an immigrant from Laos. Forty-six-year-old Cheng Saephan said that he and his wife, Duanpen, will take half of the money and give the rest to a friend. Their prize is payable over 30 years, but the couple has elected to receive a lump sum payment of $422 million. This is the fourth largest Powerball jackpot prize in history. The win has raised awareness of the Iu Mien people, a southeast Asian ethnic group that migrated to the United States through refugee rescue programs after the Vietnam War. The Portland-area community of Iu Mien is large and has a Buddhist temple, a Baptist church, social organizations, businesses and restaurants. VOA Learning English adapted this story from the Associated Press and other news sources.