Laos lotto hanoi lotto

A woman sells lottery tickets on the street in the capital of the communist country of Laos. (Richard Finney/SETimes)
Lottery officials in Laos are rigging the national lottery and manipulating drawings to avoid paying out large amounts of money, sources in the country told RFA’s Lao Service. Often, winning numbers vanish from purchased tickets during a drawing. In one case, the number 509 appeared only as 134 on tickets sold throughout the day of Oct. 14 before changing to 662 just an hour before the scheduled drawing. A directive issued by the office of Lao prime minister Thongloun Sisoulith on Aug. 17 ordered the Ministry of Finance, which oversees the legal state lottery system, to reduce the frequency of drawings and improve transparency.