August 14, 2002 | 2103 IST
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Money > Business Headlines > Report August 14, 2002 | 2103 IST |
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Lucky 3, the new online lottery in KarnatakaFakir Chand in Bangalore Riding on the success of its first online lottery gaming of the Sikkim government within six months of its launch, Ultra Entertainment Solutions Ltd of the Mumbai-based Rs 4,500-crore (Rs 45 billion) Essel Group has ventured into Karnataka for launching a similar game of fortune. Turning a few lucky ones among the common folk into millionaires through the Sikkim's Super Lotto and Thunderbolt online games, Ultra plans to turn many more into money spinners by hooking them to the IT-savvy Karnataka government-backed online lottery game branded Lucky 3. Having bagged the 5-year license through the bidding route to operate the state's first online lottery, Ultra Entertainment has appointed its subsidiary, Playwin Infravest Ltd, to promote and market the state e-game in all the 14 lottery-playing states across the country. Ultra will be investing Rs 337 crore (Rs 3.37 billion) during the current fiscal year (2002-03) to install about 10,000 retail vendors in phases across the country, including 2,000 in Karnataka, and about 700 in the high-tech city of Bangalore for operating the electronic terminals, where fortune seekers will pay Rs 10 for punching just three digits (between 100 and 999) to hit the lucky number for winning prizes on every day of the week. "Karnataka Lucky-3 is an exciting weekly lottery game that gives players an opportunity to win prizes up to 5 panels, where one can play 1-10 games on each panel with a Rs 10 ticket. The lucky draw will be held in Bangalore and telecast on Zee TV Network between 10:30-11:00 every night," declared Playwin Infravest CEO Sanjay Das in Bangalore on Wednesday. But unlike in the case of Sikkim lottery game, where the jackpot prize is billed in millions, the Lucky-3 prize will be in thousands only. While the chances of luck smiling is once in a week in the former, it could be on any day of the week in the case of the latter though for lesser amounts. The license agreement mandates Ultra Entertainment to pay the Karnataka government a minimum of Rs 10.96 billion over the next 5 years. In the first or current fiscal year, the guaranteed revenue to the state coffers is Rs 1 billion or 21 per cent of the total revenue earned from the online game, and the amount progressively goes up to 24 per cent or Rs 385 crore (Rs 3.85 billion) in the fifth year. "We are furnishing a bank guarantee to the state government against the minimum assured revenue," Das claimed. In the case of Sikkim lottery game, the commitment to its government is about Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) spread over 7 years. While 20-24 percent of the total revenue generated by each game goes to the state treasury, around 45 per cent is earmarked for the prize pool, 7 per cent to the trade or retail vendors, and the remaining 24-27 per cent is taken by the operating company. Ever since Ultra Entertainment, the holding company of the Essel Group, went into online lottery gaming business early this year, the company has claimed that there has been a substantial migration of fortune-seekers from paper lottery to the electronic lottery system in the 14 states which allow the game and where Playwin terminals are installed. For instance, Karnataka is among the top three states along with Maharashtra and Kerala to generate a minimum revenue of Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million) per week through the Sikkim lottery game, accounting for around 25 per cent of the total revenue generated across the country. Having secured a license from the Maharashtra Government for launching a similar online lottery game, the company is gearing up its infrastructure in the neighboring state to launch it during the upcoming festival season. Though the Indian paper lottery business has an annual turnover of Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion), fascination and interest generated within the middle and upper classes is low due to the lack of transparency, sophistication, variety, distribution, communication, and disbursal of the prize money. On the other hand, online lottery gaming has brought about a sweeping change by providing a transparent, credible, and entertaining tech-savvy process. Operated through a computerized process, with each Playwin terminal connected to the company's main server in Mumbai via V-SAT communication link, the real-time lottery game is accessible to anyone from the point-of-sales at retail outlets, such as departmental stores, grocers, cyber cafes, ice-cream parlors, apparel shops, restaurants, and even STD booths. ALSO READ:
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