The newly appointed military chairman of the Thai Lottery Council has threatened to take extreme measures if the sale price of lottery tickets for the June 16 draw still exceeds 80 baht per pair.
The military junta is serious about the price a state lottery ticket should cost. This may not exceed 80 baht, but currently the lottery tickets are sold for prices between 90 -120 baht. Sellers risk losing their quota of 500 pairs if they push anything on the price. So far, Major General Aphiratch Kongsompong has not taken drastic measures, but if this problem is not solved, he intends to. After the coup, the Junta promised to do something about the too high prices for a lottery ticket. A year later, the problem has not been resolved.
There appear to be five distributors driving up lottery ticket prices: Salak Mahalarp, Diamond Lotto, Yardnampeth, Pluemwatthana and BB Merchant. These five parties buy lottery tickets from government agencies and charitable organizations and resell them for a profit to street vendors. The street vendors do business with these five parties because otherwise they cannot sell enough lottery tickets to earn a decent living.
The NCPO wants to solve the problem by entering into consultation with the parties mentioned, but if that does not solve anything, Article 44 of the interim constitution may be used.
In Thailand, about 50.000 sellers earn from lottery sales. Aphiratch says that the vendors should not use lottery sales as their primary source of income, but only as a sideline.
Source: Bangkok Post – http://goo.gl/iKNc4i
You would think that Thailand has bigger problems to solve than the price of a state lottery ticket. Isn't the use of the highly questionable Article 44 comparable to shooting a cannon at a mosquito?
Don't forget that for Thais, especially the poor, the lottery is more important than work.
they go for it after Buddha and pray for lucky number.
i have seen many people lose a lot of money because of this.
but they firmly believe that this is the only way to wealth.
so it's definitely not shooting at a mosquito. It's just a big problem.
poor people who get scammed even more.
Rightly so because it is not the local peddlers who make good money from it, they often even have to buy the unsold lottery tickets themselves because the distributors do not take anything back. It is a large organized crime syndicate that has everything in its hands and finally the junta "dares" to do something about it in my view. Congratulations to the military leadership.
Tackling syndicates sounds like fun.
I just don't think it has much effect.
The last I read about it was that the tackled Tuk Tuk mafia is back.
And the jet skis have also recently been given a larger stretch of beach in Patong Beach, with smaller stretches of beach for the tourists, so that everyone can lie a little closer to the jeskis, in case they change their mind and want to use it.
It is possible that the turnover of the jet skis started to fall, due to disappointing numbers of people on the beach.
And then we get the law of diminishing returns again.
The jet skis don't raise enough, so we give them more room, causing even more tourists to run away.
If I'm wrong, I'd like to hear it.
I don't know how the lottery system is arranged in Thailand. So I can't comment on that. What strikes me are 3 things.
1. I believe that the payouts of winning lottery tickets are partly determined by the investment, in this case the proceeds from the tickets sold.
2. The price of a product (including lottery tickets) is determined by supply and demand. If the demand falls, the price is zero. If demand is high, prices will rise, just like oil or rice.
3. If the lottery ticket sellers should see their earnings as additional earnings, what should their main income be?
Point 3 especially intrigues me. Can someone explain that to me?
The 5 distributors mentioned do not sell directly to the street vendors of the lottery tickets, but at a profit to "intermediaries", who also earn a few Bath from every ticket that a street vendor buys from them, thus driving up the price of the lottery ticket even more. Of course, the street vendor also wants to have something left over from the eventual sale of the lottery tickets to the customer and must also protect himself against the risk that he/she will be left with a number of unsold lottery tickets, because returning unsold lottery tickets is not an option. In the Netherlands, a seller of lottery tickets receives a commission on every lottery ticket sold from the organizer of the lottery, but Thailand has a completely different system. Now the black piet is placed with the street vendor and Aphiratch, the (military) president of the lottery, shouts that the street vendor should consider it as extra income, ignoring the fact that the majority of these vendors, including relatively many disabled people, depend entirely on lottery sales for their income. In order to be able to sell a lot for the printed price of 80 Bath, the entire system has to be overhauled, to the commission model as in the Netherlands and with certain sales addresses. Whether more lottery tickets would then be sold, which is of course the intention of the big boys behind the scenes, I doubt. Currently, potential buyers of a lottery ticket are actively approached and a lottery ticket is often bought impulsively. It is certain that many of those 50.000 resellers will lose their income. Incidentally, I have never heard a Thai complain about the price of the lottery ticket, but I do hear that with some regularity from the somewhat richer farang.
A lot of shouting and little wool by the junta.
The corruption of the police in particular is still the same, prostitution on Paataya beach is only increasing and everyone is still selling the lottery tickets for 110 or 120 bath.
It will probably be the same as with illegal cards and gambling on a local level.
When the military gunta came to power it was quiet for a while , some checks were made here and there and sometimes raids were made here and there , in my direct living environment and shortly beyond .
But now I see it flourishing again , just like before . Because when the cat is away, the mice squeak.
And so it goes with the lottery , the Thais know where to buy the lottery tickets , out of sight of Prayuth and his friends .
My stepson from Bangkok sometimes calls my spouse to buy local lottery tickets here .
Jan Beute.
When I first came here and lived in Bangkok I bought lottery tickets for 2x 40 baht, are 2 tickets, so 80 baht. Sometimes a leftover half lot for 40 baht. The price slowly went up and has now risen to Baht 110 and 120. The lottery seller where I buy the lottery tickets has already told me that tickets sell for Baht 80 - I can write on my stomach. If he doesn't, period.
If everyone would refuse to pay more than the set 80 baht, this 'problem' would soon be solved, but of course that will not happen………..