Mind-boggling?
WHEN you suddenly achieve great success or suddenly get or win a lot of money, you hit the jackpot. In the Philippines, to win a prize, one needs to match at least three winning numbers. The more numbers match, the greater the prize. For matching six numbers, one wins the jackpot amount. In the event there are no winners for the jackpot, the prize pool is carried forward to the next draw.
Who was the first Filipino to win the lottery? Interestingly, it was our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. Rizal was an avid player of the lottery during the Spanish era and was one of three winners of a draw in 1892. Per the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) website, Rizal won P6,200 as his share of the jackpot while in exile in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte.
The luckiest number in the Philippine lotto is 58 per PCSO. The numbers that are most likely to win the lottery in the country are such that the chances of 9, 18, 27, 36, 45 and 54 being drawn are exactly the same as, say, 1, 18, 19, 28, 30 and 46. “There is no sure win number picks in the lotto as far as probability is concerned. In a lottery where you pick six numbers from a possible pool of 49 numbers, your chances of winning the jackpot (correctly choosing all six numbers drawn) are 1 in 13,983,816. Hence, if you were to buy one lottery ticket each week, based on the aforementioned statement, you could expect to win once every 269,000 years.
The issues against the current PCSO began when 433 lucky bettors won and shared the jackpot prize worth P236 million after drawing the winning combination in the Grand Lotto 6/55 in October 2022. The joke was it was payback time for certain individuals after the May 2022 elections. Someone said that the “odds of winning the 6/55 Lotto prize, according to the Philippine Lotto itself, are 1 in 28,989,675.” Imagine 433 winners!
One hundred fifty-two (152) bettors were from Metro Manila, 34 from Cavite, 22 from Rizal, 21 from Bulacan, 21 from Laguna, 14 from Batangas, 14 from Cebu, 13 from Pampanga, 11 from Pangasinan, 10 from Benguet, and 10 from Iloilo. Seven players each from Leyte and Albay also hit the elusive jackpot; six from Misamis Oriental; five each from Davao del Sur, Isabela, Negros Oriental,
Quezon and Zambales; four each from Bataan, Bohol and Tarlac; and three each from Aklan, Ilocos Norte, La Union, Negros Occidental, Palawan and Zamboanga del Sur. Two winners each came from Cagayan, Eastern Samar, Marinduque, Misamis Occidental, Mountain Province, Nueva Ecija, Oriental Mindoro and South Cotabato. One bettor each from Agusan del Sur, Antique, Aurora, Biliran, Bukidnon, Camarines Norte, Capiz, Ilocos Sur, Lanao del Norte, Maguindanao, Nueva Viscaya, Occidental Mindoro, Samar (Western Samar), Sorsogon, Southern Leyte, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Tuguegarao, Zamboanga del Norte and Zamboanga Sibugay also won.
Then came the sudden increase in the pots. The PCSO raised the jackpot of Lotto 6/42 and Mega Lotto 6/45 to P100 million each by the end of 2023. A lucky lone winner bagged the 6/49 jackpot worth over P640 million with the winning combination 26-33-1448-06-42. Then, on Dec. 29, 2023, a government employee from Albay won the P571 million jackpot in the Ultra Lotto 6/58 draw. Then came the lone winner of the Grand Lotto 6/55, worth P680 million, and the badly designed photo of the winner of Lotto 6/42 that tried to protect the identity of the winner. Because of such a lousy effort to hide the identity of the real winner, PCSO became a laughingstock.
A government agency breaching P1 billion in sales for a two-week period from Nov. 1-14, 2023, with the sales of lottery tickets hitting the P104.87 million mark on November 14, can’t professionally put together protocols to hide the identity of winners. Because of that, people started talking about the impossibility of a real winner.
In the process of making lotto exciting, eLotto was introduced without the tacit approval of the president, contrary to Section 10 of the PCSO charter. eLotto is directed towards the huge OFW market. As presented in the Senate, it was a test run, and yet the lone better is what, and the payment of commission on a test run was made! The shift from over-thecounter lotto to eLotto has also led to 2,000 outlets being closed down without much transition.
Republic Act 1169, or the PCSO charter, was enacted into law in 1954 with the mandate of providing and raising funds for health programs, medical assistance and services, and charities of national character. It was amended by Batas Pambansa 42 and Presidential Decree 1157 in 1979 and 1977, respectively. Section 6 provides the allocation of PCSO’s net receipts
(gross receipts less the printing cost of tickets not to exceed 2 percent of such gross receipts), which is basically divided into a 55 percent-45 percent distribution. The former is earmarked to winnings and prizes (55 percent), the latter the charity fund (30 percent), and operating expenses and capital expenditure (15 percent).
The PCSO has always found itself in a bind when it comes to its funds. Instead of ensuring that there is a fund for all Filipinos when it comes to health, it has placed a cap and lessened the amount that Filipinos can avail of. It has consistently maintained unpaid dues to the national government from STL proceeds and transfers to charity funds, among others.
A lottery (or lotto) is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. “Luck is not as random as you think. Before that lottery ticket won the jackpot, someone had to buy it.”