Digital lotto will not eat into ‘law-abiding’ small vendors’ quota
The committee in charge of tackling overpriced lottery tickets said on Sunday that selling tickets via the Paotang app will not affect lottery vendors.
Tipanan Sirichana, spokesperson of the panel, said the digital version is being launched to tackle the problem of overpricing after all other measures failed. She added that the digital version will not eat into the quota of current vendors provided they do not break rules.
She said the 5,173,500 tickets up for sale via the Paotang app had been seized from vendors who were selling them at a high price or those who had sold their tickets off to middlemen. Tipanan added that the Global Lottery Office (GLO) had cancelled the quota of thousands of vendors caught breaking rules.
“The government has not stolen the rights of any vendors,” she insisted. “If you comply with the law, your right will not be affected. [Don’t worry] if you are not selling overpriced tickets or reselling them to illegal platforms.”
The GLO had given small vendors a quota for lottery tickets but found that many of these vendors resell their tickets to major platforms like Blue Dragon and Kong Salak Plus.
Initially, Kong Salak sold scanned tickets at the set price of 80 baht. However, after learning that most vendors sold their tickets to Blue Dragon, it set up the Kong Salak Plus platform to sell tickets at a higher price based on how much vendors charged.
On Thursday, some 1,000 vendors whose quota had been terminated gathered outside the Nonthaburi Court to demand that their rights be restored.
The vendors said they are suing GLO for unfair termination and want the court to issue an injunction so they can continue selling tickets while waiting for a verdict.
Meanwhile, Tipanan said on Sunday that new vendors can register as online sellers this month, provided they do not tamper with the 80-baht fixed price.
She said that though the government is in charge of the online sales platform, vendors can have their own stores on the Paotang platform.
She added that vendors selling the digital version will only need to pay 1.5 per cent of their winnings instead of 2 per cent like before. Of the 1.5 per cent deducted, 0.5 per cent is paid to GLO and the rest to Krung Thai Bank for the operation of the Paotang system.
Tipanan added that from Thursday to 3pm Saturday, more than 4 million digital tickets had been sold via the Paotang app.
