In Thailand, the lottery is one of only two forms of legal gambling permitted in the country. It takes place twice a month, on the 1st and 16th, and is played by over 19 million people; nearly a third of the entire Thai population. It isn’t a huge moneymaker for the winners, but it offers a number of advantages that keep people betting, including credit purchases and bigger prizes than most other games in the country.
The lottery is more than just a game of numbers; it’s a whole culture that encapsulates beliefs, dreams and superstitions. The process of choosing a number is a complicated ritual rooted in religion, history and culture. Fate, faith and imagination all converge to create a lottery experience that unites people in the same dream. It’s not uncommon to see a young woman carrying a cardboard box of lottery tickets strapped to her shoulders as she walks down the street, or for an older man to be seen at a bar huddled over a bowl of rice and the results of the previous drawing.
When a new lottery is drawn, a large crowd gathers in the city’s main square to watch the winning numbers be announced. Each ticket has six digits and is printed with the lottery’s name, logo, schedule of prizes and ancillary information. Lottery tickets are sold in pairs for 80 baht, with each individual ticket offering the possibility of claiming the grand prize. The first three digits of the ticket correspond to different prizes, while the last two are used as the initials for the “draw chairman”.
Although the government lottery is legal, there is also an underground system that operates in parallel with it, allowing players to buy a single number on their own rather than purchasing a full pair of tickets. The underground lottery is estimated to be four to five times larger than the official lottery, but it doesn’t offer as much in terms of potential pay-outs.
For Bom, the elaborate process of selecting his lottery numbers is less about having faith in the actual process and more about enjoying the experience with friends. He and his buddies have a Line group message where they discuss different lottery tactics, and he enjoys sharing the results of his strategies with them.
While he may not have faith in his strategy, Bom does believe in luck and good fortune. For him, the best way to achieve both is to play the lottery.
THAI NATIONAL LOTTERY
The thai lottery is administered by the government and draws are held every 1st and 16th of each month. The lottery is one of the only two forms of legal gambling in Thailand and has grown to be a popular pastime among the nation’s 19.6 million citizens.
While some Thais choose to travel to ghostly shrines in search of their lucky numbers, many people prefer to draw on their own personal experiences and use life’s coincidences to determine their own special digits. Some even go as far as to calculate short odds for numbers marked by life’s strange events.
