Japan Turns Soccer Betting Into A Lottery

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Japan Times: Government hopes new soccer lottery will bring win
The National Agency for the Advancement of Sports and Health has started selling the new soccer lottery ticket BIG in a desperate attempt to boost its dying soccer lottery program...Its first soccer lottery, toto, requires people to predict a win or a loss in J. League games. People who buy BIG tickets have their bet on results randomly chosen by computer. "Even those who don't know soccer can enjoy (the BIG lottery) as well," said Shigeo Takasugi, an executive at the sports agency..."It's easy to buy as you don't have to make any predictions," a customer said at a lottery kiosk in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo...more...

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Toto lottery's future in the balance after BIG wins

After years of operating at a loss and facing calls for its abolition, the "toto" soccer lottery is finally generating a profit--by thinking BIG. Administrative reform minister Yoshimi Watanabe has urged the education ministry, which has jurisdiction over toto, to scrap the lottery program, which had accumulated a deficit of 26.4 billion yen by the end of fiscal 2006. But after the introduction in autumn 2006 of BIG, a new type of toto lottery where players could win up to 600-million-yen, toto saw a new popularity. When Watanabe talked to education minister Kisaburo Tokai last month, the two failed to reach an agreement on the future of toto. Tokai insists that dropping the lottery now would not benefit the public. In the end, the two sides decided to conduct a sweeping review of the system by fiscal 2009...Reform minister Watanabe acknowledges the recent jump in sales, but he remained skeptical on whether BIG's popularity would continue. He said fundamental reforms could still lead to the end of toto...BIG, which now accounts for more than 70 percent of toto's total sales, could face competition from other lotteries if they decide to award even bigger prize money...more...

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: 'BIG' lottery just gets bigger

Sales of the "toto" soccer lottery, once at risk of being scrapped, have staged a stunning turnaround and look set to reach a massive 100 billion yen next fiscal year. The reversal has alarmed the internal affairs ministry, whose officials oversee public lotteries and fear that the runaway success of toto is undermining sales for the government's own lottery. The newfound popularity of toto owes much to the simple appeal and impressive prize money of its "BIG" lottery, with jackpots of up to 600 million yen. Unlike the original toto competition, which required participants to predict a win, loss or draw for each J.League game of the week, the BIG lottery is determined entirely by luck--and a computer. Each 300-yen ticket contains a random, computer-generated set of predictions for all 14 games. "A culture of predicting soccer game results has not taken root (in Japan)," explained Kosho Yamada, a professor at Bunkyo University who specializes in tourism and gambling industries. "Turning toto into something like a lottery has been very successful."

Toto was introduced in 2001 to raise money for sports promotions. In the first year, sales reached 64.2 billion yen. They quickly sagged, however, falling all the way to 13.4 billion yen in fiscal 2006 and causing a loss for organizers. Fans often found it too challenging to forecast all results, and were disappointed with the low winning rates. But the introduction in autumn 2006 of the BIG lottery--whose top prize is the biggest of any public lottery--started a rapid revival. Sales of BIG tickets account for 70 to 80 percent of this fiscal year's toto sales, which are expected to be well in excess of 80 billion yen. Before the start of the 2009 J.League season this Saturday, toto operator NAASH (National Agency for the Advancement of Sports and Health) expanded sales channels to further boost sales.

But toto's dramatic success has become a concern for the internal affairs ministry. "(BIG's) purchasers now overlap with those of public lotteries; it's a rival for us," said a Local Bond Division official. When BIG became a hit in 2007, sales of "loto6" tickets, whose profits go to local governments, fell for the first time in eight years. A council set up by local governments to manage public lottery operations is considering increasing the maximum prize for their lotteries to compete with BIG. The revival of toto poses a new challenge for NAASH on how to spend the funds effectively. It plans to set aside about 10 billion yen to fund sports promotions in fiscal 2009. But subsidy applications from local government and sports associations have only reached 5.8 billion yen as many entities find it tough to foot their required share of the subsidized programs amid the recession.