Focus


AFRICA: EGYPT


Around this time Keriako was accused of tampering with prize money and the government made the Cairo Bank the authority responsible for distributing and monitoring the lottery. Not long after this in 1967 the Lottery Coalition was formed which covered 2,000 lottery vendors and distributors. Today however it only covers around 200.


Although once a popular pastime it began to change in the 1970s when it was argued that the lottery was against Islamic teachings because it is a form of gambling. The beneficiaries argued that it was not because the money is given back to NGO funds and charity. Sales however began to decline. In the 1960s some 100,000 tickets were sold daily. Today that is around 20-30,000.


The lottery now is managed under the Ministry of Social Affairs. High taxes are now imposed on tickets (60 per cent) and many shops refuse to sell them and it is left to ticket vendors on the street.


The Lottery Coalition gets one per cent of the income of sold tickets whilst Cairo Bank takes 2.5 per cent and the rest goes to the Non-Governmental Organisations Support Fund. In an effort to keep the game popular the name ‘Yanaseeb’ (Lottery) was changed to ‘Charity Tickets for the Benefit of the NGO Support Fund’


In 2005 the Egyptian Postal Authority (EPA) struck a joint venture deal with Greece’s Intralot. At the time EPA had 3,400 points of sale but aimed to extend this to 10,000. Intralot approached EPA with plans to set up a joint venture in 2005.


Egypt Post was established in 1865 and is one of the oldest and time honoured Egyptian institutions.Intralot initially installed online central system based on the LOTOS platform which included the management software, the telecommunications network and the terminals in all Egypt Post’s branches and related points of sale. However with Intralot’s expertise lying in lotteries and sports betting it was thought that eventually EPA had plans for a national lottery.


There was huge controversy over this idea at the time due to the definition of sports betting or the lottery as a form of gambling and the view on gambling by the Muslim community. Meanwhile there is no legislation for online gaming in Egypt at present so it is used freely with most players accessing foreign sites and there around 250 sites which offer game play in Arabic or English. There are no Egyptian sites as yet.


G3 I JANUARY 2011 I PAGE 40


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