Fewer sales, a new law and corruption lead the Dominican Lottery into insolvency

posted on: Sep 12 2011 9:16 by The Reporter. Viewed 484 times.


The Dominican Lottery is probably the first one in the world on the brink of bankruptcy.

No matter how he adds up the numbers, the administrator of the National Lottery (until last Friday), Enrique Martinez, cannot square up the numbers so that the agency can sustain itself after, by law, the state withdrew the collection of the taxes on the betting parlors. The resources generated by the sale of lottery tickets and quinielas (tickets with two numbers from 00 to 99 which win if they correspond to the last two numbers of the first, second or third prize of the Sunday drawings), the raw material of the lottery founded by Father Francisco Xavier Billini in October of 1882, are not sufficient to pay the staff, the running experiences of more than a billion pesos a year, and the social assistance that the Lottery provides.

The most recent of the scandals that has shaken the Lottery in recent years, related to the two month arrears in the payment of their employees, brought to light the weaknesses that have taken it to a state of insolvency, which its administrator refuses to call bankruptcy.

“In order to maintain its normal activities, the National Lottery has to receive more than RD$100 million each month,” says Martinez.

But the real problem appears to be the fact that for years the Lottery has been trailing a series of complaints about the improper use of its funds, of embezzlement, of ever lower sales of its products and millions in debts.

Since 1997, when the National Lottery lost credibility due to a fraud of more than RD$90 million attributed to a group headed by Frederick Mazourca, Norberto Taveras, Manuel de Jesus Antun Battle and Pedro Julio (Pepe) Goico Guerrero, one of the closest persons to the presidential candidate for the Dominican Revolutionary Party, Hipolito Mejia.

In 2000 the criticisms fell on Aristipo Vidal, who accumulated debts with the employees and suppliers, and went so far as to not pay off the winners, a crisis that at its time was attributed to the fact that Vidal used lottery resources to finance the campaign of Danilo Medina, who, like now, was the candidate of for the Presidency for the Dominican Liberation Party.

At the end of 2000, Miguel Vasquez took over and a short time after being appointed by President Hipolito Mejia, he was investigated on complaints of corruption by leaking the winning numbers. Similar complaints followed a year later during the administration of Anibal Amparo and they even went so far as to bring charges against two inspectors of the Presidency.

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