Sri Lankan lottery creates 5 millionaires a week
View(s):Sri Lanka’s oldest lottery, the National Lotteries Board (NLB), produces at least five millionaires a week and 40-45 a year.
The lottery, due to mark its 50th anniversary next year, reported a turnover of Rs.12 billion last year from Rs 10 billion in the previous year, a top official of the NLB said.
The NLB plans to introduce SMS, e and Internet lotteries targeting computer savvy youths as this segment is still not attracted to lotteries in a big way, General Manager M, S. Karunaratne told the Business Times.
The motto of the NLB that strengthens the country’s development efforts is to uplift the people and to uplift the country.
During last year, NLB sold over 10.9 billion million lottery tickets. He attributed the NLB success to factors, such as strengthening of the sales network of 27 district distributors and 2700 small dealers’ countrywide as well as innovative sales strategies and the commitment of the small staff numbering 300.
These dealers get a commission of Rs. 3.50 per ticket sold, he said, adding that their children are provided with scholarship money amounting to Rs. 2,500 per month for their university education.
A pension scheme will also be introduced for all lottery dealers countrywide, he revealed.
He disclosed that the new markets in the north and east too had contributed to the sales boom.
The NLB’S Mahajana Sampatha jackpot prize money amounted to over Rs. 40 million: the biggest prize to be offered in the country so far. It was finally won by a low-level worker in Moratuwa last year – a literally rags to riches story indeed.
A Jaffna resident recently won the NLB super prize of over Rs 38 million, he said, adding that another youth from Hingurakgoda became a national lottery winner of Rs.25 million.
Rejecting allegations that most of the winners were from rural areas and there were less winners from Colombo and suburbs, he said the NLB produces an average of five millionaires a week and 40-45 a year.
“There was no manipulation in lottery draws and a person’s win at a draw depends on luck,” he added.
On the other hand rural people are used to buy lotteries regularly and that was one of the reasons for producing a large number of winners from such areas, he said.
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