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A tale of two lotteries

Thailand's black market lottery is one of the country's biggest economic enterprises. It is a major source of income for some of the country's richest and most powerful figures and involves four million people in the sales and administration network. It has an estimated annual turnover of around 8% of GDP. Yet it remains illegal.

Thailand has a national lottery – 38 million tickets are sold each year. The underground lottery is based on its numbers. It's just the illegal one produces better odds and so is attractive to more people – up to nine times as many gamble on the so-called huay taidin each month.

Players bet against the prize numbers drawn in the government lottery. Tickets are sold through a vast array of small vendors whose work is then collated by bigger bosses who collect the tickets in the day before. Hundreds of people are employed for the several days before the government draws the lottery; dividends are repaid in the same way.

Huay was introduced into Thailand by Chinese immigrants in the 1820s. The word huay means flower in Chinese. In China, people bet on names of flowers which were painted on the tickets. In Thailand, the Thai alphabet was used and the lottery was originally called the Huay kor khor (abc lottery).

In the beginning huaywa just one of many gambling games played mainly among the Chinese. In 1831-2, Siam faced a sever drought and rice shortage. Tax collections fell: the king realised that there was a lot of money hoarded away , and started a lottery to entice this money out. Indeed, the plan worked and in 1835 he commissioned Jaesua Hong to act as a huay host on behalf of the government.

For 80 years this daily lottery was one of the most lucrative sources of cash. In 1902 tax revenue from gambling amounted to 27% of government revenue. By the end of the 19th century King Rama V wanted to abolish the huay tax but feared the government wouldn't be able to find an alternate source of revenue. Instead, he gradually limited the scale of the huay until it was finally abolished in 1916 under the reign of Rama VI.

Lotteries started up again in 1939 when the Lottery Bureau organised a regular monthly draw. This was extended in 1989 to two draws a month.