News that the cabinet has approved an amendment to the Government Lottery Office Act of 1974 attracted the attention of two major groups: 1) the millions of low-income participants who are hit hard by the problems of overpriced government lottery tickets, and 2) the major lottery operators who form a de facto syndicate.
These two groups, however, react differently, not to the news itself, but to the reported interpretation of what could happen as a result of the amendment of the law.
As soon as word got around that this amendment would allow the Government Lottery Office to introduce new government lottery products, such as online lottery tickets that would be sold in convenience stores or even through a wireless portable online lotto vending machine carried by the vendors, the latter had a reason to be apprehensive of what their future might be.
For them, it is not difficult to imagine losing the saleability of the ill-designed paper-based government lottery, which was introduced to Thailand in 1917 as a way to earn revenue for the government to finance its entry into World War I on the Allied side.
In a TV discussion forum following the government's plan to amend the 1974 Government Lottery Act to introduce new lottery products, the speakers focused on two messages.
First, the introduction of an online lottery would bring grief to the disabled, particularly the blind, from the loss of their current lottery quota or from the declining number of lottery tickets they could sell after the new products are introduced.
Second was the social concern that the youth of our country could easily gain access to the new lottery products and therefore become compulsive gamblers.
We have not had a chance to hear from the 17 million people who are the patrons of the government lottery. These players help make the government lottery operators at least 20 billion baht richer each year in the hope that they will become richer as well.
It is important to note that it is the fervent hope of the former that makes it possible for the latter to get rich by overcharging the players for each lottery ticket that they buy. Hope — the last of all things left in Pandora's box when she unwittingly let loose all the evils of the world — in the original Greek could mean expectation of evil as well as expectation of good.
The tragedy of gambling is that it is the business of selling and buying hope that sustains the exploitation of the poor by the rich.
To millions of Thais, buying lottery tickets is buying hope. After each drawing, the hopes of the same millions of people, except the few winners, are shattered. The culture of gambling leads people to embrace desperate measures.
A national survey conducted last year by the College of Local Administration at Khon Kaen University found that because of this hope almost all Thais aged 18 and over bought at least one lottery ticket during the year prior to the survey. In fact, it was quite hard to find a Thai who has never bought a lottery ticket. From our survey, many admitted they resorted to supernaturalism and prayed to their gods or visited a temple or a shrine, or even went to see a revered monk, asking simply for a chance to hit the biggest winning number. This is how these Thais, sometimes the poorer and less educated, manage to keep their hopes alive until the next drawing date.
We should also note that our prime minister has a hope. He hopes the government lottery could be reduced to a fixed price of 80 baht. In political science, it is a healthy sign that our national leader and the citizens of our country share the same hope.
It is not enough, however, for a national leader to only maintain and share his hopes with his fellow citizens. National leaders must have the political will to transform this hope into a policy strategy for effective implementation.
Our prime minister is certainly, on paper, one of the strongest national leaders in the recent history of our country. With the comprehensive political power he has amassed, he in theory can make things happen for the benefit of the country and, of course, for the majority of people he leads and serves — whether it be in the area of taxation, infrastructure, or the marketing of hope.
We should remember the overpriced government lottery was one of the problems that the National Peace and Order vowed to tackle immediately after the May 22 coup last year. Both the verbal order and attempts at action have produced no results so far.
Nearly one year on, lottery tickets are still being sold for 110-120 baht, in some cases even higher. This is an illustration of the case of a national leader's hope that does not produce the result that the majority of his constituents need to receive.
Entrusting policy to hope is not a trend that should be promoted, nor is misusing reason to ignore what is not desired. Or, as Turner put it in his verse caption to a painting commenting on the moral bankruptcy of the slave trade: "Hope, hope, fallacious hope! Where is thy market now?"
Dr Peerasit Kamnuansilpa is Founding Dean, College of Local Administration (COLA), Khon Kaen University.