2.8 Million Online Lottery Tickets Sold in Only 6 Hours in Thailand

After the Government Lottery Office launched online lottery ticket sales successfully on June 2, over 2.8 million digital online lottery tickets were sold in six hours on the first day of sales for the July 1st draw.

Government Lottery Office board chair Lawaron Saengsanit announced today (Friday) that 5,173,500 online lottery tickets were available to buy at 8 am today, and 2,890,682 tickets were sold to 521,427 buyers by 2 pm.

In the first lot of online tickets, for the June 16th draw, 73,191 tickets, purchased by 41,419 people, earned prizes worth a total of 247.43 million baht. This included four first prizes.

The winners will receive their cash prizes electronically within 12 hours. It is possible, however, for winners to come to the GLO in person to receive their prizes, he said, noting that many did so already.

Over five million online lottery tickets were sold in the first draw, as buyers were only charged 80 baht per ticket and could choose their numbers.

As a result of the successful launch, many lottery vendors have been left with a backlog of unsold but overpriced tickets or are forced to sell them at a discount.

Read: Online Lottery Tickets Driving Street Vendors Customers Away

It appears that the Government Lottery Office negatively impacted many lottery vendors who found they had a surplus of unsold tickets. This forced some to sell them at a discount to clear their stocks before the draw.

Thai PBS found that a set of two tickets, which are typically sold for 200 baht, were sold for 180 baht yesterday. In contrast, a set of five tickets, which are usually offered for 700 to 800 baht, were offered for 500 baht by a number of vendors.

At a market behind the Finance Ministry, one vendor said she thought many had purchased online lottery tickets in early June and could not afford to buy more from the vendors, adding that the rain yesterday morning (Thursday) might have discouraged customers from heading out.

A vendor at Taopoon Market admitted that she had more unsold tickets than normal yesterday, although she had offered discounts to customers by selling at below the official per-ticket price of 80 baht. She said that digital lottery tickets had affected her sales.

There are several vendors in the northern province of Nan who complain that they have about 200 unsold tickets each and that they must bear the costs. Some blame online lottery sales for driving their customers away from them.

A GLO spokesman and a member of the GLO board explained, however, that overpricing was the cause of unsold tickets, not the launch of the online lottery.

Approximately five million tickets for the draw on July 1st are available online as of today.

At about 4 pm yesterday, some online ticket buyers reported not being able to access the GLO app to check their tickets since the system appeared to be overwhelmed.