GLO decides against buyback reserve
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The Government Lottery Office has decided against keeping a reserve to buy back unsold lottery tickets, saying such a programme could be open to corruption.
Maj-General Apirat Kongsompong, chairman of the GLO, said yesterday the office would instead attempt to regulate the price of lottery tickets at Bt80 and offer bigger discounts to registered distributors to increase their profit margins.
The price of a lottery ticket for these wholesalers was preliminarily set at Bt69.60. Retailers should be able to procure the tickets for Bt71.20.
The new measures should be sufficient to help retailers absorb losses from unsaleable tickets.
The measures will be phased in. The first stage starts next month and lasts to the end of the year. The second will begin next year and continue until a new government is elected.
The final phase, which implements information technology in lottery tickets, will likely wait until the new administration.
