Photo: Lottery booth in Laos.


Assembly members question value of sports lottery

The sports lottery was a lively topic of debate yesterday as National Assembly members considered the newly drafted Sports Law, formulated to clarify some contentious issues.

A member for Champassak province, Mr Meksavanh Phomphithak, along with other assembly members, referred to complaints from the public about the use of monies collected from the sale of sports lottery tickets. He questioned whether the money was in fact used to develop and support sportsmen and women as intended.

He said that people had asked why, if the money was used to train athletes, the performance of sports competitors had not improved. He cited football as an example, saying that, all too often, Lao teams lost to their foreign opponents by a large goal difference.

Due to the woeful state of Lao football, other countries considered that a loss to Laos was the worst thing that could happen to them, Mr Meksavanh said.

A member for Savannakhet province, Mr Somphet Inthathilath, requested the drafting sub-committee and other members change the system whereby government officials are obliged to buy these lottery tickets.

Some government bodies, he observed, consisted of only 20 officials, but they might be obliged to buy as many as 60 tickets between them with no option to return the extras.

“If a couple are both government officials, they and their children, if they are students, will all have to buy these tickets to support a special event. This might cost them as much as 300,000 kip and represents a substantial portion of their salary,” he said.

Many members agreed that the new law should not include the lottery, as it encourages people to gamble.

A member of the drafting sub-committee, Colonel Thavone Tandavong, also an assembly member for Saravan province, said the sub-committee had included the sports lottery in the draft version of the law to generate funding for the development of Lao sports.

“Now we know that so many members disagree with the lottery, we are considering deleting it; it now seems fairly certain that when the law is approved, the sports lottery will not be included,” he said.

Although the lottery will probably not be included in the Sports Law, we all recognise that there is a chronic shortage of funds for sports development and we may decide to reverse this decision in the future, he added.

“But if we do decide to sell lottery tickets again, we will need to improve the regulation to ensure that government officials are not burdened with the purchase of too many tickets,” Mr Thavone said.

“We also need to monitor the system strictly to ensure that the money collected from the sale of these tickets goes directly towards the training of our athletes.”

By Souksakhone Vaenkeo