Keeping People’s Hope Alive through HOPES: Social Contributions of Thailand’s

Government Lottery Office

Pol.Maj.Gen. Attagrit TharechatDirector-General of The Government Lottery Office, Thailand

The Theme of Presentation

• Theoretical background• Social contributions of the Government

Lottery Office (GLO)• Strategies to keep people’s hope alive

Theoretical Background

• Lottery sales stimulate economic growth• The total amount of economic consumption

is $200 million/month (2.4 billion/year)• This is the economic growth engine that is

propelled by the poor in the form of a regressive tax

Where does the money go?

To the people as prize money

To government as revenue

As sales commission

As operations cost60%

28%

9% 3%

Social Contributions of GLO• Thai Red Cross• Public hospital

infrastructure• Quality health services• Educational development• Environmental protection• Social welfare

Keeping People’s Hope Alive

• Strategies are needed to redirect the 28% regressive tax for social programs for the poor through the HOPES program.

Keeping People’s Hope Alive

• HOPES stands for Handing Opportunity to Peoples’ Enterprises in a Socially responsible manner.

Keeping People’s Hope Alive

• Start-up an endowment fund to address:• Health promotion• Occupational development• Poverty alleviation• Educational advancement

An Efficient Strategy to Carry out the HOPES Program

• Strategic partnership with local governments

• Allocate and redistribute regressive tax revenue to the people through local governments

• Empower people through local government• Promoting decentralized management

Contribution to Blue Economy• Promoting projects that break the poverty

trap• Making the bad economy (not benefiting

people) more difficult to operate• Helping the good economy to operate more

easily• Creating more income equality

Thank you for your attention.