Lotto sales down by 39.19 percent

The lotto sales in February went down by 39.19 percent, an official of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) recently bared.

Alexander Balutan, PCSO general manager, said the sales for the month of February declined by 39.19 percent, getting only R1,587,785,710 versus R2,611,320,180 at the same period in 2018.

“Of all Lotto products, Ultra Lotto 6/58 had the highest drop at 60.11 percent with only R166,254,440 sales, compared to R 416,886,040 sales at the same period last year,” he said.

The PCSO general manager cited low jackpot prices as the cause of the decline in lotto’s sales.

“Lotto games have jackpot driven sales. We associate it with our jackpot prize. When the jackpot prize is high, the sales go up. But we are expecting sales to pick up in the succeeding months,” he explained.

On the other hand, PCSO’s Assistant General Manager for Gaming Sector Arnel Casas attributed the decline in sales to the tax imposed by the government, and the jackpot prize.

He said: “Another reason that contributes to low sales is the implementation of TRAIN (or Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) law, which we are trying to counter with the implementation of ‘balik-taya.’”

Due to the TRAIN Law, 20 percent of the jackpot prize won by a bettor is chopped off automatically.

Casas, like Balutan, also sees the low jackpot prizes played a vital factor in the decline in sales.

“One of the reasons for such low sales for the first two months in 2019 was we currently do not have high jackpot amount up for grabs and its really mind blowing that in a span of two months, there were 16 winners that hit the jackpot for various lotto games,” he said.