Dear Editor,I take issue with several details presented in the article entitled ‘What’s good, one or more lottery companies?’ published in the Jamaica Observer on Sunday, March 8, 2020. There are several inaccurate conclusions which I feel need correction.

Government’s revenues will naturally fall: All economic indicators suggest that the lottery market has room for growth. That is, competition will boost payouts.

Therefore, the introduction of an active, innovative competitor will serve to add diversity to the current players and introduce refreshing options to attract new players.

Right now, the only competition is the illegal gaming market which pays nothing to government coffers. A viable, regulated competitor adds convenience for gamers and will further suppress illegal gaming and thus bring in more tax revenues.

To suggest that the introduction of an additional lottery will reduce payouts and, by extension, inflow to the Government is counter-intuitive.  

The story reports that “90 per cent of the countries with lottery games have single-model operators”. Several countries successfully operate multiple lotteries. The long list includes Argentina, Bulgaria, Colombia, Costa Rica, Italy, Malaysia, Nigeria, Russia, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom, in addition to four Caribbean countries to which the article concedes.

Is 90 per cent a true reflection of the countries with single-model-operated lottery games? Is it cumulative or the lotteried subset?

There is also a reference to the possibility of a lottery market ‘flood’. Jamaica is quite capable of regulating multiple lotteries. To suggest that the introduction of an additional lottery would result in “chaos” is an insult to both the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC) and the gaming community. The BGLC has successfully, and without bias or prior unwarranted claims of conflict, regulated an active gaming sector, which previously included multiple lotteries.

The Sunday Observer story reports a financial analyst positing that single-model lottery systems offer more revenue for governments. In 2003, the then Government introduced a “win tax” on both Supreme Ventures and the Jamaica Lottery Company games. This drastically depressed sales by disincentivising gamers. In the months following the introduction of the new tax revenues fell, as did, as expected, inflow to tax coffers. In fact, it was changes in the tax regime, not competition, which resulted in revenue decline. The tax regime was quickly changed once again, consumers then adapted, and revenues returned to the pre-adjustment levels. This Government backtrack was widely reported at the time, so the assertion that competition led to the decline is disingenuous.

Waldo Samuelskingwaldo131@yahoo.com

We need more competition in all sectors of the economy to grow faster. Jamaica stands to gain. The ongoing and expansive benefits of a genuinely competitive marketplace impact more than the stock exchange. Competition leads to innovation and expansion of the market. This increases the market, which increases the possibility for taxation.