Lotteries are popular in many countries and have become a source of revenue for governments. In the United States, large portions of lottery proceeds are used to fund public education systems. In addition, state and local governments use lottery profits to support other programs and services. Private business interests also operate lotteries.
Currently, there are four nationwide lotteries in Canada: Lotto 6/49, Lotto Max, Daily Grand and Millionaire Life. Each is operated by a different provincial/territorial lottery corporation. The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation operates the lottery for the province of Ontario, while the Atlantic Lottery Corporation runs the games in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The Western Canada Lottery Corporation oversees the lottery operations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The Quebec-based corporation Loto-Quebec operates the lottery in Quebec.
Lottery tickets are sold at local stores throughout the country for 9 000 VN-Dong ($40 US-Cents) per ticket. The individual sellers earn a profit of about 10% on each sale. The money earned by the sellers is often enough to cover daily expenses for some, including food and clothing. For others, like Huong, a single mother, the lottery is her only source of income. “On really lucky days, I can make 230 000 VN-Dong ($10 US-Dollars), which is enough for me and my baby,” she said.
The legal lottery enterprise has seen its revenue decline because people have been buying foreign lotteries that are sold here illegally, he said. The numbers used in the lotteries are randomly assigned to each ticket. “If someone buys a lot of tickets, they could win a big prize,” he said. “But we don’t know how many people are winning.”
In the case of foreign lotteries, officials say they cannot verify the winners. The official added that the lottery has also been losing money because it does not have a license to accept international credit cards. The ministry has been working to address these problems.
In the past, Laos had a state-run lottery, which was the main source of government income. The enterprise issued a lottery four times a week and had a scratch-card lottery. But after public complaints that the frequent issuing of lotteries encouraged habitual gambling, authorities decided to cut back on the number of lotteries and to end the scratch-card lottery. The official called for stricter measures to stop people from gambling in the future. He also urged the public to report any illegal lottery activity they saw. “This is a serious matter because it can lead to addiction,” he said. “We need to have a better monitoring system to avoid such problems.” He also encouraged the media and NGOs to assist in the work of addressing this issue.