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Minister defends private online lottery games
A private company allowed to operate an online lottery in Sri Lanka will pay Rs. 500 million annually to the Mahapola Education Fund in the next three years, Internal Trade Minister Johnston Fernando said yesterday. He said the company had already paid Rs. 100 million and would increase its contribution to one billion rupees in the fifth year of operation.
Oceanic Games (Private) Limited which has been given management of the lottery to be operated in collaboration with eGame Solutions, a Hong Kong-based company, had already given Rs. 100 million towards the fund and would provide Rs. 500 million annually for the next three years, the minister said. He said that in the fifth year, the company would give one billion rupees towards the fund and thereafter, depending on its operation’s success, the sum would be revised, he said.
The minister said that Oceanic Games (Pvt) Limited did not have a licence to operate the on-line lottery but had been given its management after open tenders were called a year ago.
“We have not given a lottery licence to anyone in the private sector. It is our (Mahapola Fund) licence. We gave the management to it. It is the same way the UNP also did it. It was a failure then but we have distanced ourselves from risk as the investment is all from that company,” Minister Fernando said. Under the Mahapola Higher Education Scholarship Trust Fund, the Board of Trustees of the Fund has the power to “conduct lotteries with the approval of the Government to collect monies for the furtherance of the objectives of the fund.”
The on-line lottery will be launched shortly, beginning with an advertising campaign giving details of the games available for Sri Lankans. The Sunday Times learns that the games will include the internationally renowned lottery game Lotto under which there will be a daily draw with a ticket costing Rs. 20 and maximum prize money of Rs. 4 million, a twice weekly draw in which tickets are priced at Rs. 50 and the maximum prize money would be Rs. 50 million and the Sunday draw in which a ticket will be priced at Rs. 100 and the maximum prize money would be Rs. 100 million.
Asked about concerns that school children could get addicted to the online games, the minister said there was no need for alarm. “Under the agreement, the agents who operate these games are strictly prohibited from selling tickets to those under the age of 18. It is mandatory for them to check identity cards to ascertain the age of young people who wish to play these games,” he added.
The minister also defended the decision to allow a private company to run the lottery saying a lot of technical knowhow and investment were needed to start such an operation and there would be no loss to the state as there was no investment component. An official at Oceanic Games (Pvt.) Limited said the details of the project would be revealed in due course. At preset the National Lotteries Board (NLB) and the Development Lotteries Board (DLD), both state owned, operate lotteries in the country.
An NLB official who wished to remain anonymous said the board had sought permission from the Treasury to operate an online lottery but the matter had been pending for nearly three years. The NLB contributed more than Rs. 14 billion to the state coffers last year while the DLD contributed more than 1.5 billion rupees in 2012 to the President’s Fund. Meanwhile, eGame Solutions said in a statement last week that in the initial phase of the project, it was targeting 3,000 points of sales which would be equipped with game lottery terminals.
“We are glad to kick start this fun and meaningful lottery to the Sri Lanka market. I believe this project with Oceanic will be appealing to the Sri Lanka market given our scalable modular support for gaming operations. After the official launch in Quarter One (Q1,) we will expand our scale of operations and lottery profile to wider range of games and channels,” eGame Solution Gary Cheung said. A similar on line lottery which was started under the Mahapola Fund in 2004 resulted in losses of more than Rs. 800 million before it was stopped due to a public outcry and a change of Government.