Vietnam Lotto Explosion Leads To Policy Shift In Hanoi

Financial pressures are hitting economies world wide and some are taking steps to maximize their incomes moving forward into 2017, none more so than Vietnam where sales of lottery tickets have grown exponentially and the government is beginning to loosen the tight Vietnamese gambling laws.

Vietnam Lotto Explosion

• Revenues – 21 Provinces
• 2007 – 20 Trillion Dong
• 2017 – 65+ Trillion Dong
• Vietnam has 58 provinces

In Vietnam Lotto, or the Vietlott if you wish, has become so hugely popular that its revenues, across 21 of the southern provinces, rose from a skant 20 trillion Dong in 2007 to an impressive 65 trillion Dong today, and considering tickets are just 10,000 Dong, that’s a mammoth increase.

The Vietnam Lotto spend was a staggering $13 billion between 2011 and 2015, holding a growth rate of some 12% and that has been seen as triggering this governmental policy shift, following along with nations like Japan also paving the way for legal gambling in a region racing to catch up with Macau.

Ho Chi Minh approved the first Vietnamese lottery in 1961 to raise money for schools and hospitals and alongside the dog racing in Ba Ria-Vung Tau (the sole bet on sports in Vietnam you can make) it is the only form of gambling the Vietnamese have been legally allowed to even consider, however in Vietnam Lotto revenues are now so high, they’re impossible to ignore.

In Vietnam Lotto Is Massively Popular

Even more tricky to sweep under the carpet is the fact that the Vietnamese spend some $800,000,000 abroad (just over the border in Cambodia for instance) gambling, and that is a drain on revenues that the current situation faced by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc can well do without.

With the Vietnamese economy growing slower than expected Hanoi launched a three year tightly controlled pilot scheme which will see members of the general public in Vietnam Lotto players if you will) able for the first time to legally gamble in casinos, although which will be available to them is yet to be decided, and sites like Bet365 will still be verbotten. 

Foreign investors like the Las Vegas Sands Corp have show a great deal of interest in opening casinos in the country on the back of the Vietnam Lotto explosion, but with a pilot program hardly a guarantee of future regulations most are keeping their powder dry until all of Vietnam’s cards are on the table.