New Lottery to Replace Controversial STL; 16 Applications Received
MANILA, PHILIPPINES - Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is scrapping its community-based lottery game, Small Town Lottery (STL), and will be replacing it with a new lottery game, PCSO Loterya ng Bayan (PLB, translated as PCSO town lottery) and hopes that the new numbers game will help to curb the growth of the illegal numbers games, particularly jueteng.
STL was launched by the state-mandated lottery agency a few years back to curb illegal numbers games in many parts of the country. Instead of grounding the operations of illegal gambling, STL became a legit front for the operators of jueteng owing to the similarity of how the two numbers games (legal and illegal) are played. Illegal gambling operators no longer needed to draw their own numbers as they just had to wait for the STL draws to happen.
From a high of Php 8.4 billion (US$ 193 million) in sales of STL outlets in 2006, this went down to Php 2.3 billion (US$ 53 million) in 2008 and a mere Php 1.9 billion (US$ 44 million) in 2009.
According to PCSO records, STL is in operation in the provinces of Romblon, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, Southern Leyte, Leyte province, Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Aklan, Iloilo, Capiz, Zamboanga, Zamboanga Sibugay, Quezon, Pampanga, Bataan, Laguna, Bulacan, Negros Oriental, Tarlac, Ilocos Norte, Albay, Olongapo, Batangas, Zambales, Nueve Ecija, Cavite, and Isabela.
The new lottery game was launched earlier this month and all STL operators were directed by PCSO to show their intent to transfer to the new PLB game otherwise they will have to cease operations.
According to PCSO, they have already received 16 applications for the new lottery game and expected other gaming firms to have submitted their applications by mid-February. The agency is currently reviewing all applications to ensure that only firms with clean histories of operations and no linkages with illegal gambling will be given the new gaming franchise.
The 16 PLB applicants are part of the 26 gaming firms that have been issued STL licenses by PCSO.
Source: Philippine Star, February 16, 2011, from the article "16 Gaming Firms Apply for Permits to Operate Loterya ng Bayan" written by Perseus Echeminada
Posted: February 22, 2011
