According to the inspection conclusion at Ho Chi Minh City Lottery One-Member Limited Liability Company (referred to as the Company) announced by the Ministry of Finance’s Inspection Agency, the Company’s prize money in 2023 amounted to nearly VND 6,428 billion, of which nearly VND 4,955 billion was paid by the agents. This prize money includes traditional lottery tickets and instant scratch-off games.
Ho Chi Minh City Lottery Company paid out nearly VND 6,428 billion in prizes in 2023. Photo: Thy Tho
Regarding the authorization of prize payments, the Company signed agency contracts with its agents, which included a provision authorizing agents to pay prizes up to the special prize. The authorization fee for prize payments was set at 0.2% of the total value of the prizes paid by the agents.
In 2023, the Company paid over VND 10.6 billion (0.2% of the prize money paid by agents) in authorization fees to 120 agents, which was recorded as operating expenses for the year. Of this amount, the authorization fee for traditional lottery tickets exceeded VND 10 billion, while the fee for instant scratch-off games was nearly VND 600 million.
The inspection revealed that while the Company’s agency contracts included a provision on the authorization fee for prize payments, the contracts lacked a clause specifying the documentation required to prove that the lottery agents had made prize payments to the winning customers, as stipulated in Decree No. 122/2017/ND-CP dated November 13, 2017, of the Government on special financial management mechanisms and evaluation of business efficiency for lottery companies.
According to the Company’s report, it signed agency contracts with its agents, which included a provision on the authorization of prize payments to winning customers, with an authorization fee of 0.2% of the total value of the prizes. The documentation currently used by the Company to prove that the lottery agents have made prize payments to winning customers includes: a list of winning lottery tickets, the original winning lottery tickets, payment vouchers for the prize money paid to the agents, and the corresponding 10% personal income tax deducted from the prize money.
In terms of business performance in 2023, the inspection results showed that the Company’s total revenue reached VND 12,279.9 billion, including VND 11,879.6 billion from traditional lottery operations, representing 107.9% of the plan.
The pre-tax profit was VND 1,663.8 billion, equivalent to 112.6% of the plan, while the taxes and payments to the state budget amounted to VND 4,388.2 billion, or 114.4% of the plan.
In 2023, the Company issued 1,264 million traditional lottery tickets with a face value of VND 10,000 each, totaling VND 12,640 billion in issuance value, and 57,171,000 instant scratch-off game tickets with a face value of VND 10,000 each, totaling VND 517.17 billion in issuance value. For traditional lottery operations, the Company issued 104 batches of tickets in 2023, including 96 batches of 10 million tickets per day and 8 batches of 12 million tickets per day.
