Street vendors selling 'American-style' lottery tickets are flooding into rural areas.

Computerized lottery tickets of the "American style" are being sold door-to-door throughout the Mekong Delta and have now spread to the Central region, even though many places do not yet have official agents.

After three people won the Mega 6/45 lottery jackpot totaling over 227 billion VND, organized by the Vietnam Lottery Company (Vietlott), this type of lottery has become increasingly attractive to businesses and players. This has led to widespread price gouging and street vending across provinces and cities.

In Ho Chi Minh City, despite having hundreds of official agents, the practice of street vendors selling Vietlott lottery tickets continues to spread. The common price for each ticket sold by street vendors ranges from 11,000 to 13,000 VND.

Ms. Huong, a street lottery ticket vendor in Go Vap district, said that she used to sell an average of about 300 traditional lottery tickets a day, but recently she has had to reduce the number to add about 100 more self-selected lottery tickets because more and more customers are requesting them.

"The incentives vary from one agency to another, so street vendors have many options. Currently, for every 20 tickets I buy, I get 6,000 VND back. Adding the selling price to customers of 11,000 VND, I make a profit of 1,600 VND per ticket. This amount is comparable to traditional lottery tickets, but the demand is much stronger," said Ms. Huong.

Street vendors sell both traditional lottery tickets and custom lottery tickets. Photo: Phuong Dong.

Ms. Hoa, a lottery ticket vendor in District 12, said that recently the number of people selling both traditional lottery tickets and Vietlott tickets has increased significantly, so if she doesn't stock up on more tickets to sell door-to-door, she will lose customers. Therefore, in addition to selling traditional tickets, she also sells an extra 200 self-selected lottery tickets each day.

It's not just in Ho Chi Minh City that street vendors selling lottery tickets are flourishing; in the Mekong Delta provinces – where many still lack official lottery agents – street vendors are also rampant, especially along national highways in Soc Trang, Tra Vinh, and Tien Giang… Most of these tickets are sold for 12,000 VND.

Ms. Hanh, a street lottery ticket vendor on National Highway 60 (Tra Vinh), said that although she knows there are regulations prohibiting it, she continues to sell this type of ticket because many customers who buy traditional lottery tickets ask for it. If a street vendor makes a profit of 1,500 VND per traditional lottery ticket, they make a profit of 2,000 VND with this type of ticket.

"Every day, the agency in Ho Chi Minh City prints thousands of tickets. If you want to buy them, you just need to register in advance, and someone will sell them to you in a specific quantity. If you buy in bulk, the agency will offer a discount, even cheaper than the listed price," Ms. Hanh said.

Quickly adapting to the trend, self-selected lottery tickets have now spread to the central provinces.

The owner of a lottery ticket shop in Quang Ngai said that although the province hasn't yet opened a lottery agency, to meet customer demand, she regularly orders thousands of tickets daily from agencies in Ho Chi Minh City. Besides retail sales, she also sells wholesale to small shops in several districts. "Because I buy in bulk and get a discount compared to the listed price, I sell retail tickets for only 11,000 VND each, while wholesale prices vary depending on the quantity ordered," the shop owner in Quang Ngai explained.

Bringing lottery tickets right into the villages and hamlets, Mr. Hoang, the owner of a small shop in Tu Nghia (Quang Ngai), said that even though he's only been selling them for a week, customers have been very enthusiastic. His wife sells an average of 50-100 tickets a day at a retail price of 12,000 VND, while for wholesale buyers, he will take a larger quantity and sell them for 10,500 VND per ticket. All tickets are sourced from the official distributor in Ho Chi Minh City.

Although there are no official agents, self-selected lottery tickets are being sold rampantly in Quang Ngai.

Thanks to the widespread trend of street vendors selling self-selected lottery tickets, the revenue of lottery agents in Ho Chi Minh City has recently increased sharply. In Ho Chi Minh City, in areas with a high density of Vietlott stores such as Truong Chinh Street (Tan Binh District), Chau Van Liem Street, Nguyen Chi Thanh Street (District 5)..., most agents reported that their revenue more than doubled after three consecutive customers won the grand prize, mostly ranging from 16 to 18 million VND per day. During the three days of the lottery draw, sales even exceeded 20 million VND. In one exceptional case, an agent recorded sales of nearly 45 million VND in a single day.

Some agents say that, on average, each terminal located here sells about 2,000 tickets per day, with more than half of those being purchased by street vendors. In addition, a large quantity of pre-printed tickets are also supplied to lottery agents in the Western region, with a relatively high discount rate of 3 to 4%.

According to Ms. My Dung (owner of a level 2 self-selection lottery agency), one of the reasons for the sharp increase in pre-printed tickets is that Vietlott recently increased the sales target for each terminal from 10 to 12 million VND per day. To ensure sales targets are met, some sales points with 2 to 3 machines are forced to choose the method of pre-printing tickets for distribution to street vendors, as this is almost their primary sales channel.

Besides high discounts, some dealers also attract customers by organizing promotional programs such as increasing prize values, accumulating points, giving away tickets when purchasing in bulk... using their own reward funds.

For example, a store in Go Vap district is offering attractive prizes for tickets with this store's code. Specifically, the winning number sequence for the first prize (matching 5 numbers) is awarded 11 million VND, while the prize redemption amount stipulated by Vietlott is 10 million VND. Similarly, tickets with winning number sequences for the second and third prizes are awarded 500,000 VND and 60,000 VND respectively, which is 200,000 VND and 30,000 VND higher than the stipulated amount.

Recently, the Standing Committee of the Southern Region Lottery Council sent a document to the Ministry of Finance outlining violations in the business of Vietlott's computerized lottery tickets.

The phenomenon pointed out by the Lottery Council involves Vietlott agents in Ho Chi Minh City pre-printing winning numbers and then distributing large quantities of tickets for sale in provinces where terminal equipment has not yet been installed.

Furthermore, the practice of pre-printing lottery tickets and selling them door-to-door is considered inconsistent with the characteristics of a computerized lottery, as players lose the right to choose their own numbers, opting instead for random tickets similar to traditional lottery tickets. These tickets are often sold door-to-door at prices higher than their face value (12,000 VND compared to 10,000 VND at authorized dealers), which is seen as destabilizing the market and undermining fair competition.

Speaking to VnExpress, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Dam, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Lottery Company (Vietlott), said that they had received reports about some individuals and organizations buying tickets at sales points and taking them to areas where Vietlott has not yet launched its business to resell them at a higher price than the face value, but affirmed that this is not the company's policy.

"We will discuss and work further with the council members, and we have also sent written requests to the dealers to rectify their operations and strictly comply with regulations," he said.

According to VNE