Visayas-Mindanao lottery sales up 18.5% in 2009

MANILA, Philippines - Even as people cut back on spending due to the uncertainties on the economy, lottery sales in the Visayas and Mindanao rose 18.5 percent last year, according to a disclosure report filed by Pacific Online Systems Corp.

Pacific Online is the exclusive online lottery system provider of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Offices (PCSO) in the Visayas and Mindanao.

More people spent money regularly on the lottery last year with sales hitting P7.69 billion in 2009 compared with P6.49 billion a year earlier, confirming lottery as one of the few growth businesses amid the general downturn.

The gain in lottery sales was attributed to an aggressive terminal rollout which increased total betting network 16 percent to 1,748 as of end-December 2009 from 1,500 the previous year.

Pacific Online said the growth was also driven by record jackpots last year which further lured more bettors into the numbers game.

Willy Ocier, chairman and president of Pacific Online, said strong sales of ScratchIt instant tickets also helped drive sales.

“We overshot our sales targets for lotto and ScratchIt for 2009. Net income figures will be announced in February,” said Ocier.

The company earlier said it was eyeing a 17-percent growth in revenues in 2009 to P900 million, P750 million of which will come from lotto operations while the remaining P150 million will come from the instant scratch tickets, which have become the fastest growing offerings of the PCSO.

Pacific Online said sales of Keno – a gambling game similar to bingo – grew nearly three-fold to P88.67 million in 2009 from only P32.3 million the previous year.

Pacific Online, through its subsidiary Total Gaming Technologies, which holds the equipment lease agreement for nationwide Keno, rolled out 66 more betting terminals, bringing the total betting network to 100 as of Dec. 31, 2009.

Ocier said the company is installing 100 more new Keno betting terminals this year to sustain growth.

“We expect 2010 to be another exciting year of network expansion and new PCSO products,” Ocier said.

Pacific Online earlier tapped Scientific Games Corp. to be the exclusive supplier of ScratchIt instant tickets for a period of five years with an option to extend it for another two years.

Scientific Games is a leading integrated supplier of instant tickets, systems and services to lotteries worldwide, a leading supplier of server-based gaming machines and systems, prize betting terminals, interactive sports betting terminals and systems and wagering systems and services to operators.

Pacific Online, through subsidiary Lucky Circle, sells eight instant scratch games: Cash Machine, Golden Egg, Go Bananas, Lucky Charms, Otso-Otso, Pares-Pares and Ruby Riches, all of which are sold for P20 each with a top prize of up to P200,000. Another game variant of Ruby Riches is priced at P50 with a top prize of P500,000.

Lucky Circle currently has over 100 outlets nationwide and expects to end the year with a total of 130 branches. As a partner of PCSO, the ScratchIt project has remitted a total of P145 million as of end-September this year to the PCSO’s charity fund.