A disabled people's association has opposed a suggestion that lottery tickets be sold at convenience stores, saying it would take jobs away from disabled vendors and force many into becoming beggars.
Khuang Khamthee, chairman of the Disabled People's Association in Nakhon Ratchasima, said on Sunday the Government Lottery Office's (GLO) plan to sell tickets at convenience stores would badly hurt disabled lottery vendors across the country. The stores would be able to sell tickets around the clock, while disabled vendors were forced to sell only during daytime for safety reasons.
If the plan goes ahead, he said, disabled people who earn a living by selling government lottery tickets would end up jobless as they could not compete against giant firms. He likened the situation to small grocery stores being forced to shut their doors as a consequence of the explosion of convenience stores and mini-supermarkets.
Mr Khuang said in Nakhon Ratchasima, there were about 54,000 disabled people and some 5,000 of them earned a living by selling lottery tickets. If those disabled vendors were forced out of their jobs and could not find other work to feed their families, they would have no choice but to become beggars.
He called on the government to solve the problem of overpriced tickets at the root cause by controlling prices set by wholesalers and distribution agents or by increasing the number of tickets.
On Saturday, GLO chairman Somchai Sujjapongse said new distributors were being considered, chief among them operators of convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, Family Mart, Big C and Tesco Lotus.
Contracts with distributors for 48 million tickets will expire in June, so the time was right to review the system, he said, adding the review was possible after the cabinet approved an amendment to the 1974 GLO Act.
Since the coup, the junta has tried unsuccessfully to fix retail lottery prices at the official face value of 80 baht. Most tickets sell for 120-200 baht because they pass through a series of influential middlemen whose iron grip on distribution has frustrated attempts by numerous governments to reform the system.