thai lotto is the official government lottery in Thailand. It is held twice a month, on the first and 16th of each month. The lottery is televised live on the GLO website and on TV stations throughout the country. The prize money ranges from one to thirty million baht. The odds of winning a prize depend on the number of tickets printed and sold.
The government is trying to crack down on lottery scams and ticket scalpers. The new rules require buyers to show a valid ID before buying a ticket, and the tickets must be purchased at a licensed lottery agent. The government has also raised the maximum price that a ticket can be sold for, and this is expected to reduce the number of bogus lottery tickets on the market.
Lottery is taken very seriously in Thailand, and is the only type of gambling permitted under Thai law. During the 2000s, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra expanded legal gambling by introducing two- and three-digit lotteries. He also proposed Las Vegas-style casino gambling in rural areas, but his plans never came to fruition. Today, much of the $10 billion spent on illegal gambling in thailand goes to the underground lotteries known as “huay tai in” (“lottery houses”).
Each thai lotto ticket has a six-digit number and a two-tone watermark featuring the mythical bird Wayupak. The paper is treated with chemicals so that if the ticket is smudged or stained, it will remain unaffected. The stains will also disappear when the ticket is exposed to light.
The ticket must be presented to a GLO employee to claim a prize. Winners can claim their prizes on the same day if they are 200,000 baht or less, or within a 15-day period if they are higher than that amount. The ticket must be presented along with a valid identification document and bank account details. Foreign winners must present their passports.
The lottery is organized and run by the Government Lottery Office (GLO), which prints and sells tickets to wholesalers. The national wholesalers, also called brokers, sell them to the nation’s 14,760 retail vendors. Some retailers are owned by the GLO, but others buy the tickets from the wholesalers and sell them to customers. The GLO also offers discounts for foundations, associations, and organizations. GLO takes a cut of each ticket sale, and the rest is used for prize money and administrative costs.
