Lao lottery winner Dokkeo says she will share her winnings with family members and use some of the money to travel. “South Korea, Japan, Vietnam—you name it,” she tells RFA’s Lao Service. “It’s all on my wish list.”

But she is also wary of private business interests behind the national lottery. “I hope that the government will resume control of the lottery because it is run by private business interests, and those businesses have connections to the ruling elite,” she tells RFA.

Private business interests are selling foreign-based lotteries online in Laos despite the country having its own legal lottery, Finance Minister Bounchom Ubonpaseuth told parliament recently. He warned that those illegal operations are difficult to regulate because they take place online. He said investment is needed to develop a system that can track and identify those involved in the practice. The ministry has been reducing the number of legal lotteries issued by the state lottery enterprise to two times a week and ending its scratch lottery after public complaints that it encouraged people to become addicted to gambling.