Southern States
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Tamil Nadu-Chennai
Fortune-seeking in style, online
WANNA GAMBLE at the click of a button? Here's a technologically advanced way to shell out money. In style. Plus you get to watch them make a game show out of your money on TV. And if that's not fun enough, you just might get lucky out of all the people who bought the tickets and ... a win a few crores?
Yes, four crores to be precise, is the jackpot. That's the bait from Playwin Infravest, a company promoted by the Essel Group, that will launch online lottery in India by the first quarter of 2002.
Pumping in ``over 300 crore in the first phase'', the Company intends to set up 5000 outlets/ kiosks during the first year, hoping to get people buy lotteries online through a ``computerised process which is much more transparent, credible and sophisticated, entertaining and tech-savvy''. Terminals would be placed at dealer outlets including departmental stores, grocers, cyber cafes, ice-cream parlours, apparel shops, restaurants, electronic good stores, chemists, STD booths, the company says.
The buyer of the lottery (that costs Rs.10) then generates his own ticket by selecting six numbers of his choice or avail the lucky dip option, and get pre-selected numbers on the ticket. ``The numbers would then be registered with the central system through VSAT and the live draw would be conducted on Zee Network every week,'' the press release says.
``In UK, this show that is run by Chamelot lotteries is among the top five programmes on TV. In India, we will have a different celebrity every week,'' Mr.R.K.Singh, CEO, Playwin Infravest, says.
Online lotteries would sure change the profile of gamblers. For there would be a new set of target consumers through the online avatar of lotteries run by the State Governments of Sikkim and Karnataka.
``Because it is online, the consumer has a choice. It's a highly visible product that is easily accessible and right in your neighbourhood. It is also a game that is entertaining and creates transparency. Further, the jackpot from one week get rolled over to the next week, if there is no jackpot winner during a week, which means 4 crore jackpot becomes an 8 crore jackpot the next week. That way it is honest and people's money goes back to them,'' Mr.Singh explains.
By Sudhish Kamath
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