The Ministry of Finance “whispers” the service “Set 1 to 70” according to the results of the Northern lottery

On March 30, 2022, the Ministry of Finance issued a notice on the issue of businesses providing the service “Set 1 to 70”, the results are calculated according to the last two numbers of the Northern Lottery special prize and some websites, Lottery ticket purchasing service provider. The Ministry of Finance is coordinating with the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Information and Communications to handle these cases in accordance with the law.

The statement said that the Ministry of Finance has sent a Correction Official Letter to the Lottery Company of the provinces and centrally-run cities, and the Vietnam Computerized Lottery One Member Limited Liability Company. At the same time, the Ministry also sent Official Letters to the People’s Committees of the provinces and centrally-run cities to coordinate, manage and supervise lottery business activities, ensuring compliance with the provisions of law.

The announcement emphasized that violations of lottery ticket distribution will be strictly handled.

Recently, this form has been applied on many major e-wallets on the market such as ViettelPay, ZaloPay, MoMo and VTCPay. In addition, there are mobile banking applications of Sacombank, Mbank, etc., which support payment for this “Place 1 eat 70” service.

In fact, these units only act as a means of payment, while the service of buying lottery tickets is provided to customers by businesses such as LuckyBest, Mobilott or Loc Dinh Cao.

After the Ministry of Finance announced that the service of buying lottery tickets on behalf of the country violates the law, e-wallet applications on the market have simultaneously stopped the payment function for this service.

Decree No. 30/2007/ND-CP dated March 1, 2007 on lottery business, stipulating that traditional lottery tickets are only allowed to distribute lottery tickets according to the method specified in the Certificate of Business Eligibility issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Finance issued or under the agent contract signed with the lottery business. Specifically, lottery tickets are only distributed and sold directly to customers or through the lottery agent system.

According to the provisions of Decree No. 78/2012/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 30/2007/ND-CP stipulating that only enterprises are licensed by a competent state agency. Only after receiving the eligibility criteria for lottery business, they are allowed to organize lottery business activities.

According to the provisions of Decree No. 98/2013/ND-CP dated August 28, 2013 of the Government on sanctioning of administrative violations in the field of insurance business, lottery business: a fine of from 80 million VND up to VND 100 million for acts of lottery business without a certificate of eligibility for lottery business issued by a competent state agency (Clause 3, Article 35).

At the same time, a fine ranging from VND 10 million to VND 20 million shall be imposed for distributing lottery tickets not in accordance with the permitted distribution method (Clause 2, Article 37). A fine ranging from VND 30 million to VND 50 million shall be imposed for using lottery results by lottery businesses to organize prize programs not in accordance with law (Clause 1, Article 46).

Businesses that provide the “Place 1 for 70” service, or the service distributors of online lottery purchases, can be a place to take advantage of the lottery business legally, potentially organizing gambling. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance believes that the business providing the “Place 1 for 70” service as mentioned above is a violation of regulations on lottery business, affecting social order.