Chamlong submitted a letter to the prime minister asking that the process be prolonged for another month.

He said the bill to amend the 1974 Government Lottery's Office (GLO) Act could be put on hold until after January 1 to give the public and morality advocacy groups a time to express opinions about the two lotteries.

He said rushing the changes would only tarnish the government's and NLA's image.

"It will confirm the public's conviction that the country is now controlled by a dictatorial government which is assisted by a rubber-stamp assembly," he said.

The government suspended the two- and three-digit lotteries after the Council of State ruled last week they were illegal.

Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said he was looking to discuss the lotteries issue with Chamlong soon.

Chamlong - a member of the Santi Asoke Buddhist sect, which is strongly anti-alcohol and anti-gambling - did not directly hand his letter to Surayud but submitted it through a centre for complaints at the Government House.

Another NLA member, Wallop Tangkhananurak, called on the government to reduce the number of state-sponsored lotteries from four to just two a month. Aside from the GLO, the Government Savings Bank and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives also have lotteries.

Wallop called on Surayud to not pass the amendment in three hearings straight, as he had earlier said, because that would be deemed a "forceful promulgation of law using brute force".

NLA member Gothom Arya said there should be a systematic study to find better options to the two- and three-digit lotteries as a practical alternative to the long-running underground lottery.

An opinion poll released yesterday showed that 70 per cent of 1,182 respondents based in Bangkok thought the two- and three-digit lotteries should not be aborted. Some 55 per cent said the draws should be done once a month, while the remaining 45 per cent said draws should continue twice a month.

The Bangkok Poll, conducted by Bangkok University on Monday and Tuesday, said the respondents believed the lotteries allowed low-income earners to try their luck and the government to enjoy the revenue generated by them.

Asked if they trusted the Surayud government to handle money generated from the sale of the two- and three-digit lotteries transparently, 54 per cent said they did while 46 said they did not.