5 million Thais addicted to lottery, anti-gambling foundation reports

On July 18, the Cabinet approved a draft regulation of the L6 and N3 government lotteries and is preparing for its sale soon.

Thanakorn Komkrit, secretary of the Stop Gambling Foundation, said: “The government needs to thoroughly reconsider creating a new lottery product because data from studies confirm that there are a lot of lottery addicts in Thai society.”

The 2021 “Gambling in Thai Society” report by the Centre for Gambling Studies from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Economics found that government, illegal, and other lotteries are addictive. Millions of lottery buyers have admitted that they are addicted and cannot stop buying.

They can be divided into three main groups:

• Government lottery: Around 21% of buyers, or 5.22 million people, reported that they were addicted.
• Illegal lottery: Approximately 23% of buyers — 4.48 million people — are addicted.
• Other lotteries such as daily, stock, Vietnamese, or Laotian lotteries: Of these buyers, about 0.6% — 600,000 people — are addicted.

Clinical evidence has confirmed that the thrill associated with anticipating results or winning the lottery causes the brain to release dopamine, Thanakorn said. If buyers continually participate in these activities long term, their brains can become addicted to dopamine and hamper their self-control abilities.

Although many buyers know that their chances of winning are slim, he said some choose to buy even more frequently. Since government and certain illegal lotteries are released every two weeks, many addicts turn to daily or even hourly lotteries, he added.

He pointed out that younger buyers are more likely to become addicted.

The latest survey on youth gambling behaviour last year revealed that among respondents aged 19 to 25, 900,000 regularly buy illegal lotteries and another 900,000 buy government lotteries, he explained.

Among those aged under 18 years, 100,000 are frequent buyers of illegal lotteries while 80,000 buy government ones, he said, adding that these groups are at risk of becoming addicts if their behaviour continues.

Thanakorn said “The government should be aware of the problem and thoroughly consider it. The government should not only be concerned with raising revenue or fixing expensive lottery prices because aiming for benefits on one side may cause damage on the other.”

He also wished to make the results of the survey and the opinions of affected parties known.

“As far as I know, many small-scale lottery sellers oppose the new L6 and N3 lottery," he said. He also questioned if the government's claim that the majority of 14,398 lottery sellers agreed with the proposal is only a one-sided fact.