Karnataka   

Govt. urged not to ban online lottery

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JULY 3. The Karnataka State Online Lottery Retailers' Forum said on Saturday that online lottery earned crores of rupees as revenue to the State Government and provided employment to many people. Considering this, the Government should not ban it as demanded by some organisations and political parties.

The lottery retailers submitted memoranda in this regard to the Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, the Deputy Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, and the former Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, on Friday.

In the memorandum, they said the ban on online lottery would only strengthen illegal lottery business. The Government had been fighting for over a year now against unauthorised online lotteries, which provided only a numbered slip without a lottery ticket with the name and seal of the State concerned. Playwin was the only e-lottery which was being operated in association with the State Government. Part of the revenue from the sale of Playwin would go to the Government which funded welfare programmes such as the mid-day meal scheme for schoolchildren.

The retailers said the introduction of online lottery had put an end to the ills plaguing the lottery industry and had brought in transparency and credibility. It had helped in preventing menaces such as single digit lottery and matka to an extent, they claimed. Refuting the claims of those who opposed online lottery, the retailers said there were only 800 authorised Playwin agents, 600 of them in Bangalore. Other lotteries, including those from other States, had a large number of retailers, most of them in rural areas. While the Karnataka online lottery had only three draws a day, others had 35. The sales of the Government-supported online lottery accounted for less than 10 per cent of total lottery sales. While the nationwide sale of Karnataka's online lottery was Rs. 60 lakh a day, it was Rs. 30 lakh a day in the State.

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