Last month, Vietnam’s new American-style lottery began selling its first tickets in Saigon.
The computerized lottery service, known as Mega 6/45, was introduced to the public on July 18, boasting a record amount of VND12 billion (US$535,000) for its grand prize, reports Tuoi Tre, eight times higher than the existing prize of VND1.5 billion (US$66,900).
Under the new scheme, players can take matters in their own hands and choose the lucky numbers themselves. Each ticket has six slots which players fill in with random numbers from 1 to 45. Traditionally, Vietnam’s lottery system gives out tickets with predetermined six-digit numbers.
According to Thanh Nien, some mathematically inclined Vietnamese netizens have already crunched the numbers and found out that with the new lottery system, the chance of winning the grand prize is now reduced to one in 8.14 million, compared to one in a million under the traditional system.
Vietnam’s state-run company Vietlott and an indirect subsidiary of Malaysian firm Berjaya Corp Bhd (Bcorp) were behind the project after the latter managed to secure a US$210 million deal with the government to run the country’s computerized lottery for the next 18 years, reports Sun Daily.
Vietlott has planned to open over 800 points of sale in Saigon in the first month and gradually reach 10,000 nationwide in the next five years.
[Photo via VietnamNet]
