The sale of lottery tickets digitally that started on Thursday morning through the Paotang mobile app has been a success, according to the Government Lottery Office (GLO)’s director Noon Sansanakhom.
GLO sold the lottery tickets at 80 baht each starting at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 2. Only five hours later, around 500,000 tickets had been sold to around 110,000 buyers, meaning each buyer bought four or five tickets.
Tickets with the same six-digit numbers were also reported to have sold out by 11:00 a.m.
According to Lt Col Noon, digital tickets are now available for purchase from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, or until 2 p.m. when the lottery is drawn on days 1st and 16th. Each lottery draw would have 5.27 million tickets available for purchase, and each participant can purchase an unlimited number.
There would be 362 stores offering lottery tickets as an alternative for those who don’t want to acquire digital tickets using the Paotang mobile application, Lt Col Noon stated.
Such stores are located in Bangkok, the Central Plains, the East, and the Northeast, and more had recently signed sales contracts with the GLO for the North and South. All stores had been contracted to sell the tickets at the same price.
GLO’s director also said each province was expected to have at least one shop selling 80 baht tickets from July 1.
The online sale of 80-baht lottery tickets comes as an attempt by the GLO to keep ticket prices low as vendors had been selling tickets above 100 baht.
Thai authorities have launched a crackdown on online lottery vendors selling tickets at inflated prices, especially to buyers looking for ticket sets with the same numbers hoping to win big prizes.
The Criminal Court launched an investigation into private online sales platforms but found last month that they did not inflate lottery ticket prices but instead provided a marketplace where sellers and buyers could set prices by themselves.
Paotang, an app developed by Krungthai Bank for financial services, sends notifications to winners and allows them to claim their prizes in just a few clicks or in person at the GLO. Users must be at least 20 years old to purchase tickets.
