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Saturday, December 10, 2005
All lotto millionaires ‘from poor families’
Lotto millionaires produced by the Philippine Charity Swepstakes Office (PCSO) in the Visayas and Mindanao all came from indigent families and the PCSO is expecting more of them, said Chairman Sergio O. Valencia.
Valencia said the PCSO is modernizing the equipment in about 700 lotto outlets in the Visayas and Mindanao. They hope to tap 900 lotto outlets by the first quarter of 2006.
The high-tech lotto equipment is manufactured by Scientific Games Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia in the US.
Pacific On-Line bought these for PCSO lotto games at US$14 million. Pacific On-Line is a private lotto game provider contracted by the PCSO.
“All the old equipment in the lotto outlets will be recalled and replaced with this high-tech equipment,” Valencia said in a press conference yesterday.
P3.1B sales
There are currently 2,000 lotto outlets in Luzon. But there are only 600 in the Visayas and Mindanao, because the old system, DSL digital fiber lines, cannot penetrate remote towns.
Despite this, William Medici, PCSO Central Visayas manager, revealed that Central Visayas’ lotto sales reached P3.1 billion from January to November 2005.
The amount is already 30 percent higher than the P2 billion sales in 2004.
The projected sales for 2005 are only P2.8 billion.
Medici attributed the high sales in the Visayas to the people’s shift from the illegal numbers game “masiao.”
PCSO General Manager Rosario Uriarte said poor people place their bets in the lotto with the dream of getting out of poverty.
Those who won and became millionaires were persistent and even lined up daily in lotto outlets.
Of the P3.1 billion sales, Uriarte said 55 percent went to prizes, while 30 percent went to charity. The rest went to operational costs.
They said that PCSO, which will not spend for the operation, merely receives 30 percent of the income from Pacific On-Line.
Under the new system, the city or municipality where lotto outlets are located will get a share of five percent, while the Provincial Government will receive two percent.
Valencia, Uriarte and other PCSO officials went to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center and turned over P2 million worth of dialysis equipment.
The PCSO also deposited P500,000 for the Mandaue City District Hospital to defray the expenses of poor patients. (EOB)
(December 10, 2005 issue)
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