the new two- and three-digit lotteries are not the complete answer the government was hoping for, Finance Minister Chalongphob Sussangkarn said yesterday.

"The government is making a new problem. It's trying to solve the immediate problems facing the whole lottery issue," he said.

Concerns about the underground lottery, the original two- and three-digit lotteries initiated unlawfully by the ousted Thaksin Shinawatra government and the overpricing of seven-digit lottery tickets will still remain, he said.

National Legislative Assembly president Meechai Ruchuphan said the new lottery was regarded as different from the one started by Thaksin and could be operated without legal problems.

Unlike the earlier version, punters may not be able to specify the two- and three-digit numbers they want to buy. Pricing has also not been decided.

The earlier lottery tickets were sold at Bt20, Bt50 and Bt100, with winners receiving prize money in proportion to the amount they paid.

The seven-digit lottery tickets are priced at Bt40 but are usually marked up to Bt50 or Bt55 by vendors.

Social Development and Human Security Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham said the upcoming lottery could be operated without any new laws or legal amendments.

It would also avoid granting a de facto legal pardon to the former premier or ministers involved in the earlier scheme.

The new lottery was needed to counter the grass-roots lotteries, which go on, however, because of the long-established seven-digit national lottery, he said.

The government needs to boost public awareness about the drawbacks of allowing illegal lotteries and other types of gambling to continue, he said.

The government will not cede to all of the demands by lottery vendors, especially the crucial condition that punters be allowed specify which numbers they want to buy.

"Everything will be done to the max to undermine the underground lottery system and prevent youths from getting hooked on gambling and betting," he said.

Vendors have been expressing strong opposition to the government's idea of not letting punters select the numbers they want to buy.

Sirima Khlangjarukul, a lottery-ticket agent in Nakhon Ratchasima, said the type of lottery would be useless and not wanted by any agent, because there would be no punters interested in buying what they could not select.

Citing one example, she said one book containing 100 lottery tickets would sell only one ticket, the one number highly sought after, while the remaining 99 tickets would be wasted.