The government has been losing money because private business interests run the national lottery, a lawmaker told RFA’s Lao Service. He said the companies responsible for running the lottery are paid an annual fee by the state but have no public accountability. They also are able to manipulate drawings and sell tickets with numbers that are not randomly drawn.

In addition, officials in communist Laos are rigging the lottery by vanishing winning numbers from purchased tickets, according to sources in the country. Last October, a number that was supposed to be the winner of the national lottery—134—appeared only on the bought tickets for a few hours before the drawing, an RFA source in Vientiane told the news agency.

Finance Minister Bounchom Ubonpaseuth told lawmakers in a recent extraordinary session of the National Assembly that illegal online lotteries are booming and that efforts are under way to regulate them. He called for investment to set up a system that can trace those selling the lotteries.