BANGKOK, Jan 16 — Every day at 6am, on a patch of sidewalk on Rajadamnoen Avenue, up to 100 lottery ticket vendors set up trestle tables loaded with tickets.
It would have been a long day by the time they pack up at around 6pm, but worth it; the more active large-scale sellers can make up to 40,000 baht (RM4,000) a month.
This is the government lottery — apart from some horse racing the only legal form of gambling in Thailand.
The vendors here are all able-bodied. Besides these and hundreds more like them in other locations, selling tickets for the government lottery is a traditional occupation for the disabled, who get the tickets at a concessional rate.
Blind lottery ticket sellers in Bangkok make their way slowly along the crowded and complicated sidewalks, tickets arranged on a tray braced around their necks and shoulders.
The lottery is again at the centre of a debate pitting morality against the realities of the political economy. So far, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is batting for morality. He wants to cancel a government contract signed under the administration of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, awarding Loxley GTech Technology a deal in which the company will set up a network of 5,000 PC-based lottery ticket machines.
Thailand trade representative Kiat Sittheeamorn has been tasked to find a way out of the contract. Abhisit is worried the new system will further encourage gambling in a country of inveterate gamblers. Opinion polls show he has public backing. But there is a gulf between ideals and reality.
In an editorial on Jan 6, the Bangkok Post said: “This basically conservative nation is uneasy... about any legalised betting.”
But it admitted that as in alcohol and prostitution, “the flesh is weak”.
Gambling is estimated to turn over up to 300 billion baht a year in Thailand — most of it unaccounted cash in the illegal underground lottery which operates in quiet neighbourhood networks often run by the wealthy and influential.
Part of the logic of the deal with Loxley GTech was that some of the massive underground “numbers” gambling game would shift to the fast and easy electronic version, bringing the government taxes to the tune of 10 billion baht.
Loxley GTech initially said it would sue the government for three billion baht if the contract is voided. But on Thursday, Abhisit and United States-based GTech Corp chairman Donald Sweitzer agreed to look for a negotiated settlement.
With so much money involved, and a conveniently blind eye turned to vice, lottery and gambling issues have been contentious ever since the national lottery was started in 1974.
Senator Monthien Boontan, president of the Thailand Association of the Blind and a strong campaigner against the new quick-and-easy PC-based system, reckons around 10,000 disabled people sell lottery tickets. That means more than 100,000 family members depend on their income.
The new system “is not going to be fair to disabled people who are almost completely blocked from any share in it, and have difficulty accessing the system”, the senator told The Straits Times.
“It costs 200,000 baht to get the machine, and 5,000 baht per month rental. As far as I know, a great number of people listed as operators (of the new system) are either associated with politicians’ or business families. At least the conventional lottery keeps 10,000 disabled people in work.”
The disabled are not alone. At Rajadamnoen Avenue, the able-bodied all support the Premier.
Wannee, 57, and a mother of three, said: “Tickets on the machine will be cheaper than ours.” Individuals could buy single tickets instead of a whole sheaf stapled together, she explained.
“Even this is not good, of course. It encourages gambling too,” she said, gesturing at her array of paper tickets. “But I do it because I need the income.”
Another mother of three, Ketsiree, 50, said: “Who will benefit from the new system? Loxley GTech will make money, not Thailand.”
Last week, the English daily The Nation in an editorial said: “Perhaps Abhisit is telling our morally bankrupt society that enough is enough.”
But it added: “We can’t even stop underage teenagers from entering nightclubs, so we can forget about preventing them being lured by gambling.
“If Abhisit wants to cite social evil as his war cry, he will have to go after the illegal vendors. Otherwise, this is just good old political opportunism.” — Straits Times
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