Apollo Group on Wednesday launched its online lottery venture -- Lottus -- and announced it would invest Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion) over the next three years to garner a revenue of Rs 2500 crore (Rs 25 billion).
"With an investment of Rs 250 crore envisaged over three years, we hope to establish a leadership position in the on-line lottery business by both exploiting and expanding the market potential," joint managing director Apollo International Raaja Kanwar told reporters in Kolkata.
The company had got license to market Arunachal Pradesh State government lotteries, but was also bidding for licences in Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Kerala.
He said the company would set up 1000 terminals within this month, which would be extended to 5000 by March, 2004 in West Bengal, North Eastern states, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra in the first phase and rest of the 14 states where lottery was allowed in the second phase.
"India has huge untapped potential in lottery considering that only two per cent of population was playing it as against about 80 per cent in the UK," Kanwar said.
To a query, he said global lottery market was considered to be worth Rs 700,000 crore (Rs 7,000 billion) and was growing at 10 per cent annually while the Indian market was worth Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion) with two crore tickets being sold daily for about 100 draws.
Kanwar said they intend to extend a helping through the Lottus Foundation to the needy children.