The news has upset many lottery agents and customers.

Charan Pakdithanakul, the new permanent secretary at the Justice Ministry, will ask the government to curtail the jackpot.

He said yesterday the jackpot was a social vice that lured a lot of poor people into gambling instead of paying attention to work.

"The jackpot leads people astray. It has always been promoted as the nation's benefit provider, although it is actually a vice and no one organisation takes responsibility for it," Charan said.

The two- and three-digit lottery began three years ago as the brainchild of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Its huge jackpot helped to promote the sale of tickets. Thaksin claimed the government could bring in money that poor people would give to underground lottery bosses anyway then use the cash to help the poor.

But critics said Thaksin abused the lottery cash by using it to shore up his popularity among the poor.

Bang-orn, a lottery agent in Bangkok's Lak Si district who declined to give her second name, said people would buy illegal tickets if the jackpot was taken away.

"Without the big prize to attract buyers, they will turn to underground lotteries that always offer them about a 20-per-cent discount and let them buy illegal tickets on credit," she said.

She did not believe Thais would quit gambling for any reason, including abolition of the jackpot.

"Thai people will never give up on gambling - they will only change the way they take a chance," Bang-orn said.

Tassanee Thanomrattana, 50, an agent on Bangkok's Rama II Road, said she had prepared herself for anything happening after the political change.

Although she would prefer not to be an agent, as it went against her religious principles, she had no choice. She started selling tickets after her family's grocery shop started to struggle due to the aggressive expansion of giant foreign chain stores.

"It's the main way to earn money for my family," she said.

Regular lottery ticket buyer Patcharin Chaimongkol, 25, said she would miss having the chance to win Bt20 million. But she would continue buying tickets - in the hope of winning some Bt1,000 prizes instead.

"It will mean I am not so excited when listening to the lottery result," she said. Business owner Chuleeporn Yaemnin, 25, another regular buyer, said the jackpot didn't make her gamble as she knew the probability of winning the prize was so slight. She only hoped for a small prize.

"Before making a decision to abolish the reward or not, I beg them to ask people first. The opinion of decision-makers should not be the only factor," she said.

But the president of a Chiang Mai association that assists people with disabilities, said he supported abolishment of the jackpot prize, which he blamed for destroying the career of disabled people who sold tickets in the six-digit lottery.

People had favoured the two- and three-digit lottery because of the jackpot, which caused sales of six-digit lottery tickets to drop by more than 50 per cent.

Several hundred handicapped people who sold lottery tickets had had to change their job. Some became two- and three-digit lottery sub-agents.