Russian federal budget revenues from holding lotteries, which have been a state monopoly since 2014, reached 5 billion rubles, said Valentin Kondrashov, general director of State Sports Lotteries.
Last year, customers of Russian Lotto, Gosloto 6 of 45 and 5 of 36, as well as the Housing Lottery, brought the government 500 million rubles in revenue.
According to the Law “On Lotteries”, the right to organize them in Russia belongs to only two structures – these are the Ministry of Sports and the Ministry of Finance. They choose a contractor who becomes the operator.
“When we get money from players for participating in the lottery, at least 50%, and in some lotteries 67%, we return them as a prize fund,” said Kondrashov, whose company won the tender for the Gosloto lottery.
So, 5% of the fees go in the form of earmarked contributions, 3% – to the payroll fund, the rest (12-30%) – to ticket manufacturers, distributors and service agents. In terms of lottery penetration, Russia lags noticeably behind other countries.
“The reason is that no one has been involved in this industry for more than 20 years. We are reviving step by step the lottery culture and people’s faith that they have every chance to win and that if today is not lucky, your money will go to socially important projects,” says Kondrashov.
The lottery organizer is in contact with the Russian Ministry of Finance. They have a very high quality of dialogue and cooperation with this ministry and well understand that they have a common task – the growth of contributions to the federal budget for the needs of Russian sports.
Ru-Main, 27.11.2019
