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| Luck at lunchtime | | Lottery vendors in the downtown financial district around Dalal Street keep their customers? hopes burning and enjoy brisk sales |
| M Saraswathy / Mumbai Feb 05, 2012, 00:23 IST |
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It is a hot Thursday afternoon in Fort, Mumbai. Officegoers from nearby Dalal Street and the Reserve Bank of India have started queuing up at roadside eateries during their lunch break. Sugarcane juice vendors are doing brisk business. In the midst of all this, one group is seen thronging the lottery shops in the lanes of adjacent Bora Bazaar. Of course these punters are not sure of their odds of winning, but they are trying their luck nevertheless. After all, other modes of investment are not giving great returns either.
“This is practically a recession-free profession,” says Ganesh Patil, a lottery vendor in the Fort area, gleefully. “Though people keep losing, the addiction stays on. This makes them come to us again and again, making our business prosper.”
Patil is one of the few people who run a paper-based lottery business in this area. Most others have switched to the online lottery system, because it is convenient and gets more customers.
Lottery sellers have somehow managed to beat the slowdown fears. Patil’s sales figures are impressive. He says he makes around Rs 3,000 a day selling lottery tickets. During the festival season, when the bumper lottery prize money is announced, he gets even more business. “I have been in this profession for more than two decades,” says Patil proudly. “I have my loyal customer base and can assure you that the most winning tickets are in my shop.”
At any given point, there are at least seven or eight prospective customers at his shop. Some are eagerly checking whether their tickets have hit the bumper prize of Rs 51 lakh, while others merely look on.
“I have been amused to see the kind of money people spend on this. It is corporate gambling,” opines an RBI employee, a regular visitor to the shop. “If they had so much money, they could very well go to the quiz shows on television and try their luck there.” He, however, does not buy tickets. He only watches others splurge on them and entertains himself.
Ten shops away, Rajbir Verma is trying to lure customers to his newly opened shop. His is probably the only shop in the area that deals in both paper and online lotteries. “Since we have inaugurated the shop recently, we are yet to build our customer base. Though our paper lotteries have not given the kind of sales that we expect, the online lottery has been doing very well. We make a sale of Rs 20,000 per day,” says Verma.
While there is no lower age limit for people buying paper lotteries, online lotteries can be bought only by those aged 18 and above. One glance at these shops reveals that it is mostly middle-aged men who frequent them. Lottery dealers, however, refute this claim. “We have people from all age groups coming in to purchase lotteries,” says Rambhau Kadam, an adjacent dealer. “There is also no gender difference, as even females regularly come to us. After all, it is a matter of luck.”
Rajshree Lottery, run by the Sikkim government, and Goa State Lotteries are the brands preferred by customers. The law permits only lotteries organised by state governments. Some states, like Karnataka, have banned lotteries altogether, but others, like Maharashtra, use them to rake in extra revenue.
In the popular online lottery system, the customer selects a number and, after it is entered, a printed ticket is handed over to him. Different schemes have different prize purses, but sellers say that customers have a tendency to purchase more. “In my particular shop, for example, one gets prize money nine times the ticket prize. So, if it is a ticket worth Rs 20, the prize money is Rs 180,” explains an online lotteries vendor.
So, what makes customers buy? It is a habit, say the buyers. “I have been purchasing lottery tickets for the past 17 years from the same vendor,” says Rehman Sheikh, a 47-year-old banking professional. “I have never won a prize beyond Rs 1,000. But I do not get bogged down. Who knows, I may win a big prize some day. The hope lives on.”
Adds another customer, a 37-year-old electronics dealer, “I always save some money for this every month. Though I know that it is pure gambling, I cannot somehow resist as I have seen some co-workers winning jackpots.” He has lost Rs 1,000 the previous day, but still chooses to spend Rs 700.
“We do advise new customers not to get into this habit,” says a dealer of Rajshree lottery. “But what can we do beyond that? After all, this is our source of livelihood.”
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