The Myanmar military regime has designated Mytel, itself a military-owned company, as the provider of an official platform to sell tickets for the national lottery online.
The plan to sell lottery tickets via the internet is an apparent attempt to mitigate the loss of revenue for the military from decreased sales. Lottery ticket purchases plummeted after the military seized power in 2021, in part due to boycotts organised by opponents of the coup regime.
The junta’s internal revenue department announced in a June 8 statement that the tender for a technology company to create and manage a new online system for selling lottery tickets, originally opened in September 2021, had been awarded to Mytel.
“In collaboration with Telecom International Myanmar Co., Ltd (Mytel), we are now capable of successfully implementing the Aung Bar Le Online Lottery System,” the statement said.
Mytel, a telecommunications firm, is currently under the control of the Myanmar military.
Star High, a subsidiary of the junta-owned conglomerate Myanma Economic Corporation (MEC), owns 28 percent of Mytel’s shares. Myanmar National Telecom Holdings (MNTH), another conglomerate of several regime-run companies, owns 23 percent, and Viettel Global Investment JSC, which is owned by the Vietnamese military, owns the remaining 49 percent.
Of the total proceeds from ticket sales, 40 percent is allocated to the regime as revenue, while 60 percent is awarded to the lottery winners. However, responding to the drop in sales after 2021, the military council is attempting to boost purchases by promising to award 70 percent of the proceeds as winnings.
A lottery ticket seller, who requested anonymity, said that the success of the new lottery sales system remained to be seen, but that selling the tickets had been ruined as a profitable trade for retailers like him.
“I don’t know what to expect anymore. Everyone knows about the fall in sales. The lottery business isn’t the same as before. I had to take on other jobs because I couldn’t make a living as a lottery ticket seller alone,” he said.
The lottery department has not made any statements addressing how the implementation of the online lottery system may affect sales for retailers.
Saw El Muu, a member of Blood Money, an activist opposition group that targets the military council’s revenue streams, predicted that the junta’s online lottery system would be a failure, since the same people refusing to buy paper tickets were also boycotting Mytel and would be disinclined to use the company’s online platform.
“They can implement any system they want. It’s not as if they could force the public to buy lottery tickets. The people are just going to boycott them again,” he said.
According to an early 2022 report by the junta’s internal revenue department, revenue for the military council had fallen by 34 percent as compared with the amount collected during the ousted civilian government of the National League for Democracy (NLD).
According to the report, total revenue from lottery ticket purchases amounted to only 86bn kyat in the 2021-2022 financial year, as compared with 160bn kyat in revenue received by the NLD government in 2019-2020, its last full financial year in power. Annual revenue reports for 2022 and 2023 have not been released.
The launch party for the online lottery system took place in Naypyitaw on June 8 and was attended by Min Aung Hlaing as well as several ministers and junta-connected business owners.
The price for one online lottery ticket will be 1,000 kyat, according to the internal revenue department’s June 8 statement.
Ticket retailers are generally required to buy their stock from the regime at 910 kyat per ticket, with the regime buying back excess inventory at varying rates.
The exact portion of profits from the new system that will go to Mytel is still undetermined. Mytel’s largest domestic shareholder MEC has become a major source of revenue for the military since it was founded in 1997 under a previous military dictatorship, and has been sanctioned by the European Union and the United States and United Kingdom governments since April 2021.
