PCSO’s Small Town Lottery earnings slightly down in April

The earnings generated from Small Town Lottery (STL) slightly declined in April as the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) cracked down on some erring operators.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the PCSO said STL earned P1.9 billion last month compared to March's P2 billion.

PCSO general manager Alexander Balutan said the slight decrease was attributed to the termination of some Authorized Agent Corporations (AAC) for violating the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).

“From 84, there are now 81 STL operators. We have to terminate erring AACs because of repeated violations of the STL-IRR, especially under-remittance of the Presumptive Monthly Retail Receipt (PMRR)”, Balutan said.

“This is the reason why there will be a temporary slowing down of revenues from the STL because some AACs was sanctioned and/or terminated for violations of the IRR. The PCSO Board is now opening applications to replace these terminated AACs. We shall not hesitate to terminate more if they don’t pay the correct PMRR,” he added.

Balutan said that STL revenues have already contributed almost P8 billion in the P20.8 billion sales of PCSO from January to April this year that includes Lotto products, Keno and Sweepstakes, an increase of 29.30 percent from the same period last year.

The PCSO said that early this year it had a consultative meeting with the AACs from all over the country to discuss some revisions of the IRR.

It also aims to address issues and problems concerning the shortfalls of STL operators in their PMRR.

“We are going to fast-track the process of bidding to prevent illegal numbers game operators from putting up jueteng like what’s happening in other provinces. When there’s no legal operator, illegal operators come in. And they are out there to discredit PCSO’s STL program,” Balutan said.

With this, the PCSO said they are now accepting applications for prospective bidders of STL for the provinces of Iloilo, excluding Iloilo City, and Cavite.

Applications for both provinces will be opened until June 15, 2018, 5 p.m.

Interested applicants must submit complete documents to the STL Advisory Committee office located on the 4th Floor, Sun Plaza Building, 605 Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City.

“For our part, we shall continue to support President Rodrigo Duterte’s all-out war against anti-illegal gambling by strengthening our IRR and completely eradicating jueteng, masiao, swertres, peryahan ng bayan, and all forms of illegal gambling,” Balutan said. —KG, GMA News