Lotteries are games of chance where people have a chance to win a prize by matching numbers. Prizes may be money or goods. Some countries have national lottery systems while others operate state-based or territorial lotteries. These are often administered by government-licensed operators. They also sometimes sell instant lottery games, such as scratch-off tickets or keno. In the United States, lottery revenue is used to fund public education.
Lao officials are rigging the country’s national lottery system to avoid large pay-outs, sources in the communist nation tell RFA’s Lao Service. Drawings are regularly disrupted when the numbers that appear on purchased tickets are deemed unlucky or improbable to be picked. For example, on Oct. 14 this year, the number 509 appeared on thousands of tickets sold throughout the day, but it was replaced with a different number an hour before the drawing began.
The winners of the most recent Powerball jackpot in Oregon are an immigrant and a friend from Laos, the nation’s poorest Southeast Asian country. Cheng Saephan, 46, wore a sash at a news conference that read “Iu Mien USA” and said his luck in winning the $422 million after taxes will change his life. He and his wife, Duanpen, plan to move from Portland to a rural area in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where they can plant rice crops and raise livestock. They’ll also help relatives back in Laos, where the couple were born and raised.
New Zealand has a national lottery called Lotto, operated by an autonomous Crown entity called the Lottery Grants Board. The board distributes lottery profits to charitable projects and organizations domestically and internationally, including the iGaming industry through grants for research and development. Besides lottery funds, the board also oversees other public spending agencies such as Sport and Recreation New Zealand and Creative New Zealand. It also administers the lottery’s four games, including Lotto, Keno and Instant Kiwi. New Zealand’s lottery is a popular source of charitable funding. Currently, there are around 2,500 lottery agents in the country. In addition, more than 4,000 private businesses operate lottery-style games on the Internet. These online lotteries usually charge a premium on the base lottery price, which is not considered gambling by most governments. As a result, they are not subject to the same strict rules and regulations as land-based gaming outlets. The online version of the game is not available to residents of the United States and Canada, where gambling is illegal. However, a growing number of people in the world are playing it over the Internet. This has led to a surge in lottery-style websites.