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 Today I would like to praise him on an issue in which he has shown his good intentions. On July 3, there was news that the finance minister instructed the Government Lottery Office (GLO) to review and restructure the lottery quota allocation system for selling agents in order to ensure fair and transparent allocation to all parties concerned, and not to concentrate only on a few big agents as is currently the practice. The minister expected the GLO to propose a new allocation structure within three months and even said, "If GLO executives cannot do this, we will have to find someone else who can".

To my knowledge, besides the quota allotted to the War Veterans Association and the visually impaired, the GLO allocates its remaining sales quota to four or five major agents, who are known as the "lottery Mafia". These major agents then allocate their quota to another layer of agents, each of whom further divides the quota to retail agents or retail salesmen. This layered sales network makes it possible for lottery tickets to reach buyers all across the country and for sales volume to increase. However, the drawback is that the four-to-five members of the lottery Mafia jointly determine the price of the tickets sold from layer to layer, which finally increases the retail price for the end buyer to Bt100 each, while the retail price determined by the GLO is only Bt80 each. The difference of Bt20 per ticket is, of course, divided between major agents, agents and salesman.

One may argue that selling agents and salesmen should have some revenue for their sales efforts, a principle I do not contest. But the interesting fact is that from the price of Bt80, 12 per cent or Bt9.6 is allocated for administrative and sales expenses. For each lottery, there are about 46 million tickets sold by the GLO. The amount allocated for administrative expense and sales expenses is therefore about Bt440 million per lottery. There are 24 lotteries a year; thus the total amount for administrative and sales expenses is as high as Bt10.5 million per year. I was told that from this amount, administrative expenses are normally a minor part, while most of it goes to sales agents. I do not know how much of this goes to retail agents or retail salesmen. But we can easily see that the difference of Bt20 (between Bt100 and Bt80) on the estimated sales volume of 40 million tickets, totalling Bt800 million per issuance or Bt19,200 per year should be enough for all agents and salesmen. Nobody can guess how the sales expenses allocated by GLO are being split among agents or whether they are left in the hands of major agents only. What I can say is that if the four-to-five major agents really compete in selling lottery tickets, the retail price to the end-buyer would be cheaper than the current price of Bt100 and overall sales volume would be much higher.

 I was not aware of the above-mentioned sales network of lottery tickets until I became the finance minister at the end of 2006. When I was submitting the amendment of the Lottery Act to the National Legislative Assembly to allow the issuance of the two-and-three digit lottery, a lot of questions and concerns were raised by the NLA members, which were quite interesting.

However, there was one concern which I found irrelevant to the proposed text of the amendment. Concerns were raised that the amendment would lead to the use of sales machines to dispense two-and-three digit lottery tickets, replacing canvassers, while the text of the amendment did not mention the sales machines. Upon further study of sales procedures, I found that even if the sales agent makes use of the machines in the sale of two-and-three digit lottery tickets, those machines would not be accessible to buyers who normally stay in their place waiting for canvassers, who would still be needed to work in tandem with the machines. Canvassers would not lose their jobs and should not be afraid of the machines.

Then who else would be affected by the introduction of the machines? I ran into experts in this field who confirmed that the machine to be used by agents of the two-to-three digit lottery would help input the amount of the bet into the machine so all the betting would be compiled accurately and the payback amount for the winning number can be calculated correctly and rapidly. The machine cannot perform the canvasser's function in negotiating the variable betting amount and delivering payback to the winners who are scattered in remote areas. Canvassers, therefore, should not be afraid that the machine would take their place. Those who are actually afraid of the introduction of the machine are the major sales agents for the normal lottery. They are afraid that if the machines are found to be convenient, the GLO might decide to use it for selling normal lottery tickets as well and the machine would dispense normal lottery tickets at the retail price announced by the GLO, which is Bt80 each. This would affect the selling price of Bt100 as jointly determined by major sales agents.

My fact-finding effort also revealed that in the past when two-and-three digit lottery tickets were still offered, the amount being bet on them increased and the volume of normal lottery tickets purchased started to decrease. Also I learned that the four or five major agents really join hands firmly under the leadership of one person who maintains a good relationship with a good number of press people and also is the supporter of a high level executive of a certain political party.

  I write this article with the intention that the public at large could be aware of what the finance minister is attempting and realise that this is not a small issue. It will cut into a sizeable income of a group of persons who have enjoyed such benefits for a long period of time and the leader of this group has maintained good relations with persons who can influence opinion of others in society. Mr Minister, I wish you success in this and admire your courage to fight against the influence of the existing lottery major agents. Please stand firm, communicate with the press in each and every step of actions, and gather support from related parties in various corners of society. I believe you will succeed.

Until next Monday.