The Government Lottery Office (GLO) will increase digital lottery ticket availability by 2 million, to 7.1 million, for the August 1st draw and may periodically increase them by 2 million a time, up to a maximum of 20 million tickets this year, according to Director-General of the Revenue Department and Chairman of the GLO board Lawaron Saengsanit, as the online option has been proven very popular, with over 2.8 million tickets sold in just six hours last week.

Citing the positive public response to digital ticket sales, through the “Pao Tang” platform for the last two draws, which saw the 5.1 million tickets for each draw sell out in a couple of days, Lawaron said that the GLO has decided to increase digital lottery ticket availability for the August 1st, tickets for which will be available online from July 17th.

He also said, however, that the increases will be done on step-by-step basis, to maintain a balance between digital and conventional ticket sales.

The GLO board has also decided to increase outlets for the sale of lottery tickets, at 80-baht each, from currently about 1,000 to 2,000 by year end, to prevent overpricing, in addition to the online sales.

In the past several years, the GLO has tried various ways, including printing more lottery tickets, to solve the problem of ticket overpricing, but without success. Each ticket is commonly sold at more than 100 baht, and at times as high as 130 baht, whereas the face value is actually 80 baht per ticket.

The launch of online lottery sales in mid-May and the overwhelming public response appears to indicate that the GLO may be on the right track in addressing the problem of overpriced lottery tickets.