Southern lottery companies bow down to Vietlott

Nguyen Thanh Dam, deputy general director of Vietlott, told Vnexpress that they have signed contracts with lottery companies in Ha Nam and Thua Thien-Hue provinces. Accordingly, along with traditional lottery business, these companies will become Vietlott’s agents to take the bonus.

According to rumours, Capital Lottery Company also intends to co-operate with Vietlott to improve its business results.

Capital Lottery Company lost its shine since Vietlott’s Mega 6/45 has appeared. The company also launched a computerised lottery to compete with Vietlott, but failed because Vietlott has been offering much higher jackpot prizes.

Besides, the company also saw a decrease in profit. Notably, in 2016, Capital Lottery earned VND728 billion ($32.04 million) in revenue, however its profit was only over VND3 billion ($132,045), equalling a quarter of 2014. In 2017, the company expected to earn VND3.6 billion ($158,454) in profit only.

In its report related to its development strategy by 2020, Capital Lottery set the target to prevent decrease in revenue and profit.

In the race to gain market share, traditional lottery companies in the South were forced to raise their maximum prize to VND2 billion ($88,260) since January 1 from the previous VND1.5 billion ($66,195) in an effort to compete with Vietlott.

In early December, Vietlott officially expanded to Hanoi with 150 agents, hoping to replicate its success of the past few months in the south.

In January 2016, Vietlott signed an exclusive 18-year contract with Malaysian conglomerate Berjaya to launch computerised lottery games.

The Mega 6/45 is the company's first foray into the market. Players select six numbers from 1 to 45 and win a jackpot that starts at VND12 billion ($538,000) by matching all six numbers from the draw. Each ticket costs VND10,000 ($0.40).

The prize will keep growing until there is a winner. The odds of winning have been estimated at around one to 8.14 million, lower than the odds of being struck by lightning.

In 2016, Vietlott reported a revenue of VND1.6 trillion ($70.6 million). This is the highest annual revenue since the company’s establishment in 2011.