Twice a month the whole of Thailand grinds to a halt. Now this is not because everyone has simultaneously fallen asleep, although in this country that is not beyond the realms of possibility.
But the 1st and 16th of every month is lottery day and anyone who has got their priorities right is either glued to the television or huddled over the radio.
After all, it’s not every day you have the chance to pick up enough money to be able to retire immediately, or more realistically, win enough for one wild night out.
According to Thai folklore, if you dream of snakes, lizards, crocodiles and other such delights it might just be your lucky day with the lottery. However, it will come as no surprise that more useful than sweet dreams about ugly reptiles is a little “inside information”.
This is apparently the reason why protesters have recently been taking so much interest in the licence plates of vans that transport caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
They claim last week’s winning lottery numbers are very similar to the licence plates, suggesting the premier unfairly wins support from rural folk who are known to have a thing about auspicious licence plates and the lottery.
Well, it is Amazing Thailand ...
Lucky numbers
Some might argue that all this fuss about the lottery is simply a sign that the protesters, already bored with their whistles, have run out of things to protest about and are getting desperate. They may well have a point. But the protesters allege that during the past year there have been several other instances of the premier’s licence plates matching winning lottery numbers.
Whatever the case, the numbers were not particularly auspicious for the PM herself, who took a nasty fall while climbing out of a van in Chiang Mai and is now conducting important affairs of state from a wheelchair.
It’s probably just as well her wheelchair doesn’t have licence plates.
Wheels of misfortune
Bizarre though the above claims may be, the Thai lottery does have a rather “colourful” history, to put it mildly. In 1987, we were treated to the Great Lottery Fiasco. This was in the days when they used lottery wheels rather than selecting balls.
Spectators attending the fortnightly draw began to notice erratic behaviour by the wheels. They had become very jerky and tended to stop abruptly.
On one celebrated occasion the wheels became totally stuck and had to be whacked with a hammer.
An investigation was held and it came to light that six of the seven wheels were rigged by tiny remote control magnetic devices. It became known as the huay lock or “Lock Lottery”.
Investigations revealed the scam had been going on for more than a year and it was estimated “someone” was raking in 30 million baht in pocket money at every draw.
Naturally, nobody at what was then called the Lottery Bureau knew anything about this, heaven forbid. However, after a brief internal investigation, the axe fell and three officials faced the ultimate punishment, being transferred to inactive posts where they were given the title “resource persons”, which prompted considerable mirth at the time.
Spot the ball
After that debacle, the lottery draw became more transparent with lovely ladies holding balls with numbers on them. Actually, that sounds a bit rude. But a few years later the transparency had got all murky again.
The procedure was that “guests” picked the balls out of the drums. On the June 1 lottery in 2001, suspicions arose when one participant took ages and appeared to be searching for a particular ball. He proceeded to pick the number 1 twice, which could have been a coincidence, of course.
But the underground lottery vendors didn’t think so as there had been a last minute rush by shady characters buying tickets with what turned out to be the winning number.
This led to the entertaining situation of the totally illegal underground lottery vendors complaining to the official Lottery Bureau that someone was cheating. They were right too. Apparently the fellow who picked out the numbers had been wearing special contact lenses which enabled him to pick out a dye on the ball he was supposed to pick.
A committee was formed to investigate the matter and that was the last we ever heard of it.
Hitting the jackpot
Before coming to Thailand, the only time I had won anything in a lottery was at the age of 10 at the church fete.
The prize was a large bar of soap which at that age seemed more of a punishment than a reward.
However, upon arrival in the Kingdom, good fortune smiled on me when I actually won the two-digit prize on the Thai lottery. The reward was the grand sum of 200 baht. I was so excited I raced down to the Lottery Bureau on Ratchadamnoen Avenue to collect my winnings.
The officials there were highly amused that a farang should be such a Cheap Charlie as to bother to show up in person for such a measly amount. But I didn’t care — it was the winning that counted.
I probably spent nearly the entire winnings just travelling to and from the wretched place, but it still felt good. And of course I spent a lot more in the evening celebrating the big win.
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