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Bolivia – Bolivia to launch electronic lottery

By - 13 October 2017

Bolivia’s National Lottery Commission of Charity and Health (LONABOL) has announced that it will launch an electronic lottery.

According to Executive Director Rossio Pimentel, the new lottery will be launched by January, and has already been given permission to operate by the Authority of Taxation and Social Control over Gaming (AJ).

The official explained that in order to implement the electronic lottery, ticket vending machines will be installed in different parts of cities throughout the entire territory. In order to play customers will need to choose 6 numbers out of a total of 49. A ticket will cost around US1.50. According to Pimentel, there will be a televised digitised draw every Friday and the lottery will offer an accumulated jackpot as well as other prizes. The lottery has an initial budget of $b5m (around US$723,000.) which will be used for the acquisition of equipment and for marketing purposes.

The official said that LONABOL raised $b8m up until August this year (around US$1.1m), and that the intention is to reach $b12m (around US$1.7m) by the end of the year. Pimentel expressed her hope that there would be no deficit for LONABOL this year because the National Lottery “works to save lives,” she said.

The only institute permitted to run lotteries in Bolivia are those still run by LONABOL, which has until recently, run a single traditional paper lottery called the Lotería Beneficencia Salubridad, which has one of the lowest turnovers in the entire region. The lottery has been present in Bolivia since 1871 and income made from the lottery goes to the health sector.

In the past attempts to revitalise interest in lotteries such as the creation of a special Mother’s Day Lottery as well as other themed lotteries have been largely unsuccessful and ticket sales have remained low. The sector is also fragmented as LONABOL in the past has granted companies the rights to run lotteries on its behalf. Some of these companies in a small number of cases have failed to award prizes to winners, which has led to a lack of confidence in the sector.

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