Author: Samuel Ansah Boateng
Despite avowed assurances by the National Lottery Authority, NLA, to clamp down illegal and unlicensed lotto operators in the country, some members of the Lotto Writers fraternity and other lotto lovers, popularly known as ‘game men’, have charged the Authority to gird up it’s loins on the promise; to make sure sanity prevailed.
‘’We have always heard the NLA say they are clamping down illegal and unlicensed lotto operators, but nothing has changed.
It is just like a promise backed by no action, they have made some arrest in the past, but with what is going on now in the system, we don’t think the Authority is doing enough’’, they said.
According to the angry lotto writers, the influx of illegal lotto operators and their cunning activities was dwindling the image of the Lotto business, ‘’a situation government needs to pay attention and consider as a matter of urgency’’.
‘’There are so many reports where illegal and unlicensed lotto operators have either refused to pay or absconded with huge sums of monies belonging to genuine draw winners, these illegal operators do not just evade taxes to government, they also use their operations as a decoy to fleece unsuspecting victims, which is criminal, but the NLA is not doing anything about it, even though there are some issues we have personally written to them’’, the Writers explained.
The Writers recalled from an incident where about seventeen of their members who worked as a group staked an amount of Four Thousand, One Hundred and Two cedis (GHS4,102.00) with one Porsche Lotteries, with an expected return of One Million and Seventy-seven Thousand, Six Hundred Ghana Cedis (1,077,600.00).
According to the group, their stakes were successful, and in their excitement, thronged the premises of Porsche Lotteries to redeem their monies.
To their shock, they were informed by Porsche’s management that although their stakes were successful, they were not in the position to pay them.
This paper gathered that although their Lapaz branch Manager confirmed the win of the 17 lotto writers, top management of Porsche Lotteries quickly sacked him, claiming he had conspired with the subscribers.
However, checks conducted at the NLA, by this reporter, revealed Porsche Lotteries was not licensed and was running an illegal business.
When Public Relations Officer of the National Lottery Authority, Goodfellow Dei Offei was contacted, he confirmed, Porsche Lotteries was not part of their licensed operators, and it was against the NLA’s laws.
‘’We have been tasked by the Director General to arrest those behind Porsche Lotteries, and prosecute them, and that is the way forward so far’’, Goodfellow Dei told this reporter.
