Lady luck smiles on lottery ticket sellers

By Ananda KANNANGARA

A disabled ticket seller

Ticket seller

People buying tickets

Chaminda Athuluwage	Chandrawansa Pathiraja

Have you heard about a beggar who won the first prize of a lottery to the value of Rs. 956,527 and the money was later cheated by the lottery seller himself. The incident was reported a few years ago from Panapitiya, in the Kalutara District.

When Sunday Observer visited Kalutara during the weekend to see the livelihood of lottery sellers who were engaged in a very steady profession, a long standing lottery seller, 42-year-old Sarath Gamage revealed this story of the beggar.

According to Sarath, the beggar, 86-year-old Karunadasa, a bachelor was in the habit of purchasing lottery tickets every month. He was employed as a labourer in a rubber plantation at Matugama in the Kalutara District until he reached 50 years. He lost one of his hands due to an accident at the age of 50. This resulted him to leave the job.

As there was no steady monthly income after leaving the job, Karunadasa started begging in the streets, at bus stands and in trains.

The accident also caused some brain damage to Karunadasa. Although he lost the job and started begging he did not stop his favourite pastime of buying lottery tickets. He bought lottery tickets until he won a prize, but he did not know that his luck was robbed by another person.

Sarath pointed out at Karunadasa who was very feeble and lying on the cement floor of the bus stand and said if he was in a good health at that time he won the lottery ticket, he would have been a millionaire.

Sarath futher said, when Karunadasa gave his winning ticket to the seller to check whether there was any prize in the ticket, the seller knew that the ticket had a big prize amount, but pretended that he had won only Rs.956. He promptly gave a thousand rupee note to Karunadasa. He in return thanked the lottery seller for his kind gesture. Sarath said following this incident, the lottery seller was in a habit of giving Karunadasa sufficient money for his daily spendings and also to buy medicine. He also bought a wheel chair for Karunadasa.

Sarath said he knew the story of Karunadasa and about the lottery incident from a person in the area. He said the ticket seller had revealed everything to one of his relatives. He said until the ticket seller's death, he had helped Karunadasa. Even today Karunadasa who is not in a sound health condition is awaiting the return of the ticket seller.

When Sunday Observer met a number of lottery sellers in Colombo and outstations they made various comments on their business activities.

A disabled, long standing lottery ticket seller in Borella, 54-year-old Abeyratna Wanniaratchchi said he started selling lottery tickets from 1983 and after becoming disabled he had to employ another five persons to sell tickets.

"I met with an accident while selling lottery tickets", he said. Wanniaratchchi said he sells about 2,000 tickets a day with the help of his employees and getting a daily income of about Rs. 7,000. The income is divided among six and each person gets about Rs. 1,000 a day.

He said lottery sellers are always doing their business activities on the road and their life is in danger. He therefore proposed the authorities to introduce an insurance scheme to help the families of countrywide lottery ticket sellers.

A 60-year-old lottery ticket seller, Gamini Tissera of Nagoda, Kalutara said five of his family members depend on his lottery selling business and he earns about Rs. 1,200 a day from selling lotteries.

Gamini said he gets a little commission of Rs. 2.50 from a ticket and requested the Lottery Board to increase their commission at least by one rupee.

He also said lottery ticket sellers do not have a fixed daily income and proposed the authorities to register countrywide all persons who are involved in the ticket selling business and start a provident fund scheme as in other private sector institutions.

A female lottery ticket seller Kanthi Hewage of Panadura said, lottery ticket sellers are leading a very miserable life as most of them are married and they have no proper housing facilities.

She requested the authorities to help obtain bank loans through the National Lotteries Board and also provide school books for their children.

She requested authorities to register all lottery sellers with the NLB and the Development Lottery Board for their safety, so that they could help the sellers in case of accidents.

She also said a young ticket seller who was in the business for nearly 13 years was killed in an accident while selling tickets, but no one helped his family even to do the funeral activities.

Chairman, National Lotteries Board (NLB) Chaminda Athuluwage said over 30,000 persons are engaged in the lottery ticket selling business in the country and the Board has planned to register them with the objective of helping them after their retirement.

He said the NLB has introduced lotteries such as Mahajana Sampatha, Jathika Sampatha, Wasana Sampatha, Supiri Vasana Sampatha and Govi Setha.

"We sell over 1.8 million Mahajana Samapatha tickets and 1.6 milion Supiri Wasna Sampatha tickets every week. We also sell a record number of over 600,000 Jathika Samapatha lottery tickets, every week".

According to NLB, district lottery agents are getting 25 cents as commission from a ticket and seventy five cents by area agents, while lottery ticket sellers are getting between Rs. 2.50 and Rs. 3.00. The NLB Chairman further said that they have planned to popularise lotteries in the Northern and Eastern Districts and steps have already been taken to start ticket selling activities in those areas.

Chairman, Development Lottery Board, Chandrawansa Pathiraja said the Board contributed Rs. 1.4 billion towards the President's Fund last year and a large sum of money was contributed to the same fund during the fist four months of this year.

He said there are over 20,000 Development lottery sellers in the country and the Board has decided to introduce an insurance scheme for the benefit of them and their families.

He also focused special attention towards disabled lottery sellers and said a special welfare scheme will be introduced shortly to help them and their families.