Government snaps on-line lottery plan

NEW DELHI, June 4: Digits rolling up the computer screens across the country; punters picking up random numbers; and the results of the dra...

NEW DELHI, June 4: Digits rolling up the computer screens across the country; punters picking up random numbers; and the results of the draw on the national network. The idea sounds alien, and it will remain so. The Centre has rejected proposals by two States to bring in multinational companies for introducing satellite-linked lotteries in the country.

Himachal Pradesh and Punjab had submitted their respective proposals to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) early this year. The proposals promised to rake in massive profits by introducing popular on-line lottery games such as Lotto. Sources say that the FIPB has, however, turned down

both the proposals.

Sources in the State Governments say though the FIPB’s rejection has given a major jolt to their plans for on-line gaming, they will still be pursuing the issue. The HP Government, in its proposal, states that the annual turnover of its on-line lottery will be to the tune of Rs 400 crore. The estimated turnover is astronomical considering that all the State lotteries put together earn Rs 450 crore a year.

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The Punjab Government has proposed to have the New York Lotteries, which is among the top five lottery organisations in the world, as technical collaborator to run their service.

Till the recent setback, the Himachal Government seemed to be all set to introduce the first on-line lottery in the country with much fanfare. Two employees of Tattersall, the Australian technical collaborator for the HP lotteries, who had arrived here early this year, reportedly left in disgust, sensing that the political climate did not seem conducive for the hi-tech lottery business. According to sources, the foreign collaborators have subsequently packed up the plush offices they set up in Delhi’s Nehru Place.

The proposal of the Himachal Government states that it appointed DP Communications, owned by Pali Singh, an NRI from Australia as as sole marketing agency to run their lotteries. DP Communications has in turn deputed an Australian Lottery Agency, Tattersall, as its “technical collaborator” and Perfect Relations as its PR agency.

Two agents of Tattersall, Adrian Nelson and Michael Glasson, have prepared a plan to spread a network of 2,200 on-line gaming terminals throughout the country and then linked them to central computers via communications networks based on telephone lines, radio and VSATs

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A lottery ticket’s price is put at Rs 10. The state government has proposed a weekly announcement of the lottery result and the jackpot price on national network television. Such lottery announcements on televisions are very popular abroad and are viewed by millions of people, the proposal says.The on-line lottery is proposed to work on the lines of the National Stock Exchange initially. Tattersall has planned to introduce games like Lotto, in which lottery players select several numbers from a predefined field of numbers. The same quantity of numbers is randomly selected in a drawing. To win or share the jackpot pool, players must match all of the numbers drawn.If only one winning ticket exists, then that player wins the entire pool. If nobody matches the drawn numbers, the jackpot rolls over into the next drawing pool and continues to grow until a player matches all of the numbers. The Himachal Government’s proposal cited the case of the biggest Lotto prize of $ 10 million won by one person in Australia.