Government lottery tickets at the official price of 80 baht a pair became available on Friday at the Government Lottery Office (GLO) and provincial halls across the country.
A seller offers lottery tickets at the official 80-baht price per pair near the GLO building on Ratchadamnoen Avenue in Bangkok on Friday. (Photo by Seksan Rojjanametakul)
However, authorities admit they have yet to figure out a way to enforce the 80-baht price nationwide, given the difficulty of dismantling the entrenched network of profiteering wholesalers and middlemen.
The public has complained for years about overpriced lottery tickets but successive governments did nothing. Now the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) is attempting to flex its muscle to challenge the system.
The GLO sells lottery tickets to wholesalers for 74.4 baht but typically they go through several sets of hands, to the point where vendors have had to charge an average of 110 baht a pair just to cover their own costs.
Somchai Sujjapongse, the new GLO chairman, said on Friday that while some tickets could be made available at 80 baht a pair, the prices of tickets elsewhere were still controlled by "market mechanisms" for the time being.
Mr Somchai noted that authorities had to approach a solution carefully because the issue was sensitive and involved a large amount of people.
Therefore, authorities for now would remain lenient about the market prices of lottery tickets, he said.
The vendors selling tickets at the official 80-baht price were receiving them directly from provincial governors and provincial finance chiefs, Mr Somchai explained.
Buyers at the provincial halls in Mukdahan, Phatthalung and Sa Kaeo responded enthusiastically to the change.
Some said it was the first time that they could buy tickets at 80 baht a pair as vendors normally charged 100 to 110 baht or even 120 baht per pair of tickets with a same number.
At the Aranyaprathet border checkpoint in Sa Kaeo, lottery vendors had virtually disappeared. Previously about 100 vendors from Loei province were regular fixtures at the border checkpoint.
One vendor said that most of them did not dare to buy tickets from wholesalers for the next draw because they feared losses in case they were required to adhere to the official price.
The vendor said they normally had to buy tickets from wholesalers at more than 90 baht per pair.