The lottery industry is a multibillion dollar business. Some governments, such as the US, have state-run lotteries, while others allow private businesses to organize and conduct them. These private firms have developed online lotteries, instant tickets, and keno. These companies are gaining market share as traditional lotteries continue to decline. In addition, many countries have adapted their gaming laws to make gambling more accessible to the public by offering legalized online games and casinos.
Whether the lottery is government run or privately operated, its revenues have become an important source of funding for the public sector. In the US, lottery funds have helped to build highways and schools, and have contributed to local governments’ general fund balances. They have also enabled states to lower taxes and provide social services for their citizens. In addition, the Internet has increased lottery participation and allowed players to play from the comfort of their homes. The international lottery company GTech Corporation is based in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, and manages 70% of the world’s online lotteries and instant tickets.
In Laos, where the communist regime is concerned about large pay-outs from the national lottery, rigging and manipulation of the drawings has been rampant, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. A caller to RFA’s Lao Service reported that drawing results sometimes disappear from purchased tickets, and numbers deemed unlucky vanish completely. The number 509, for example, appeared only as a five on tickets sold throughout the day of a recent drawing, but changed to the winning number 10 minutes before the actual result was announced.
Lottery officials in the communist nation of Laos are rigging the system to manipulate winning numbers and avoid large pay-outs from the national lottery, sources in the Southeast Asian country told RFA’s Lao Service. The national lottery draws are held three times a week, but the numbers on purchased tickets often disappear before the winners are drawn, and other numbers that would be unlikely to be chosen are added instead, according to the sources. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
The winner of the $1.3 billion prize in Oregon is a Laotian immigrant named Cheng Saephan, who lives in Portland. He told a news conference that he will split his prize with a friend, a fellow immigrant from Laos, who is undergoing cancer treatment. The couple will keep half of the money and give the other half to family members.
A linguistic anthropologist at the University of Sydney, Charles Zuckerman, is working on a book about gambling in Luang Prabang. His previous research looked at the moral and communicative dimensions of gambling in Laos. He is an expert in the use of language for communication, and his current research focuses on gender and morality in a Laotian community. In the future he plans to explore a range of topics, including the ways that people use language to express their moral choices.