Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, chief of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), wants government lottery tickets to be sold fairly at their proper price of 40 baht each, or 80 baht per pair, instead of the 100-110 baht per pair now being charged by vendors.
Army Comptroller Lt Gen Anantaporn Kanchanarat said that at the NCPO's meeting on Tuesday Gen Prayuth ordered an investigation into why a pair of government lottery tickets with the printed price of 80 baht was instead sold to individual buyers at 100-110 baht.
Gen Prayuth wanted an answer as soon as possible and also ordered that a pair of tickets retail at the official price of 80 baht, Lt Gen Anantaporn said. The process should be complete in time for the next draw of the government lottery.
Lottery vendors who would not be named said the selling price had soared to 100-110 baht per pair because the 72 million lottery tickets printed for each draw were in practice allocated to only a small number of wholesalers, who could push up the resale price at will. The margin from the overpriced tickets amounted to about 30 billion baht annually.