THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Seksakol offers 3 solutions for overpriced lottery saga as parting gift

Seksakol offers 3 solutions for overpriced lottery saga as parting gift

Seksakol Atthawong, a former aide to the prime minister, said on Monday that he has given his final proposal on solving the problem of overpriced government lottery tickets to the PM’s Office sub-committee he chaired.

He made this statement after stepping down as aide to the premier as well as chair of the sub-committee on Monday. Seksakol said he was giving up these posts to take responsibility for a voice clip of his conversation with Palang Pracharath Party member Chureeporn Sinthuprai. In the recording, he can be allegedly heard as saying that he took 15 million baht from a man to finance an election campaign, and hoped a police raid on a lottery seller would not be tracked back to him.

In his statement on Monday, Seksakol said he proposed three measures to tackle overpriced lottery tickets.

The first is to add civil clauses in the contract between the Government Lottery Office (GLO) and ticket resellers, such as specifying the deposit amount and fine if resellers violate the contract.

Second, criminal clauses will be added to the existing GLO Act of 1974 and its 2019 amendment to prevent possible violations. Third, the sub-committee should consider revising related laws in the GLO Act and the 1999 Anti-Money Laundering Act to ensure legal action is taken against those selling government lottery tickets at inflated prices.

Meanwhile, GLO director Noon Sansanakhom said the office has entered the second phase of its “80 baht Lottery Tickets” campaign, which aims to prioritise the ticket quota given to resellers who strictly sell tickets at 80 baht each.

“In the first phase, 77 lottery vendors passed the qualification screening and will be granted a quota of 2,500 tickets per draw,” he said. “In the second phase, we have 4,790 applicants, but only 2,666 are qualified to join the programme. Qualified resellers in the second phase can start selling tickets for the draw date of May 2 onwards.”

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