Lottery games are a form of gambling that involves drawing numbers and prizes. The games are regulated by law in some jurisdictions and are popular around the world. In addition to state-run lotteries, private operators run games in some countries. Some offer instant-win games, where players have the chance to win big sums of money for a small investment. Others are long-term prize games with a fixed minimum amount of money that the player must pay to participate. The games are played on-line or in some cases at brick-and-mortar establishments.
New Zealand has a national lottery controlled by an autonomous Crown entity, Lotto NZ. Profits are distributed by the Lottery Grants Board to a number of charities and community organizations. These include Sport and Recreation NZ, Creative New Zealand and the Film Commission. Lottery winnings are not taxed in New Zealand.
A Lao immigrant who has battled cancer for eight years will share a lottery jackpot worth hundreds of millions of dollars with a friend who gave him $100 to buy tickets. Forty-six-year-old Cheng Saephan of Portland, Oregon, said he will take half the prize to help his family and donate the other half to charity. The couple shared tickets purchased in a lottery online game in which they won the first place prize of $1.3 billion. Saephan, whose wife is in Thailand, wore a sash at a news conference identifying himself as Iu Mien, a southeast Asian ethnic group with roots in southern China. Tens of thousands of Iu Mien families assisted American forces during the Vietnam war and eventually settled in the United States, particularly in the West Coast area.
In Canada, a person can purchase lottery tickets through provincial and territorial lottery corporations, each of which is responsible for administering one or more lotteries. These corporations are owned by the provincial/territorial governments and include Atlantic Lottery Corporation (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador), Loto-Quebec (Quebec), Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (Ontario) and Western Canada Lottery Corporation (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut).
Officials in the communist country of Laos have been accused of rigging the nation’s lottery system by manipulating numbers to avoid large pay-outs. A source in Laos told RFA that a government-controlled company that runs the national lottery has business interests with individuals who have connections to the ruling elite. RFA’s source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the numbers that appear during a lottery drawing are sometimes changed after people buy tickets with them. For example, the number 509 that appeared in a drawing on Oct. 14 this year appeared as only five on tickets sold throughout the day of the drawing. This is because the number has the buffalo symbol, which is considered a good luck charm in Laos.