Berjaya Vietnam lottery faces fraud accusations

The Southern Lottery Committee, which represents 21 state-owned lottery companies in South Vietnam, has submitted a document to the Ministry of Finance accusing Vietlott of misrepresentation, of false advertising.

At the October 22 annual conference of all the southern lottery companies, concerns arose that Vietlott is destabilising the regional market.

The companies elaborated that instead of having people pick six numbers and then printing them out on physical paper, like advertised, Vietlott agencies sometimes print out tickets with numbers already on them for people to pick from and sell those in the cities and provinces without Vietlott agencies.

Tra Vinh does not have an official agency and the famous $4-million winning ticket sold here was allegedly pre-printed.

Nguyen Thanh Dam, deputy general director of Vietlott, explained that pre-printing is to meet the differing demands of customers. “Some people want to buy tickets with numbers on them already, instead of picking for themselves,” he said.

Tran Van Phuoc of the Lawyer Association of Binh Thuan, said in an interview with the local newspaper that pre-printing the lottery tickets means the whole process is not as random as it is claimed to be.

In Mega 6/45 people pick six numbers from 1 to 45. In the traditional Vietnamese lottery, people buy tickets with a six-digit number printed on them.

However, there are no grounds to invalidate the VND92 billion ($4 million) prize. Even if the process is not as random, it is a civil transaction between the ticket provider and the player where the terms were agreed on when they entered it.

Earlier, a Facebook user posted a screenshot of the news article on Vietlott’s website announcing the jackpot winner, posted at 12 PM on October 16, while the picking of the winning number begins at 18 PM every Sunday.

Answering queries from newswire vietnamnet.vn, Dam said that this was because the website’s system automatically labels everything posted between 12 PM and 12 am as ‘12 PM’ and everything posted after 12 AM as ‘12 AM’. The same dating mechanism was used for all articles posted in July, August, and September. He said the company had fixed the system to avoid further complications.

He also dismissed concerns of rigging the equipment used to pick the winning combinations.

After the jackpot prize of VND92 billion ($4 million) was paid out, it reverted back to VND12 billion ($540,000). Two weeks without a jackpot winner, the prize now stands at VND22.36 billion ($1 million) for the October 30 drawing.

Earlier, the prize took over a month to reach VND24.214 billion ($1.1 million) on August 26. As the prize amount is a portion of the revenue from ticket sales, this shows a significant boom in sales since the last jackpot was won.

Vietlott reported on its website a sharp rise in the revenue from ticket sales in all cities and provinces where Vietlott machines are located. Vietlott and Berjaya yesterday announced looking for agencies to sell tickets in Hanoi, Haiphong, and Quang Ninh. They are looking to open three to five agencies and two to four in Haiphong and Quang Ninh.

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