Thai lottery - how to understand it

[smoooth2]

Like most of us I suspect, I've bought the occasional Thai lottery ticket for my missus, without really ever knowing whether it's won anything.

"you win anything my love ?"

"no .... not win. Soon baht."

However, her recent unannounced purchase of a beautiful Canary yellow Lamborghini, now proudly parked in my carport, prompted me to try and understand the Thai lottery.

Finally ...... I get it. Took shit loads of research, and re-reading stuff several times, but now I understand it. Thought I'd share the knowledge with you lot.

OK. Here we go. It's quite complicated, but at the end, you'll put me on the Christmas card list.
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Drawn on the 1st and 16th of every month. Live TV coverage on Thai Rath (ch 32) at 3pm. I suspect even the Thai's don't understand this extremely complicated "draw the numbers" proceedure, so don't bother trying to understand it.

The end result is bucket loads of numbers, which I'll explain down the page a bit.
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All tickets are sold as two tickets actually joined together. Same number on both. 80 baht total for the two. If you ask for just one ticket, you'll actually get two. Why ? Ask any local. They don't know either.

All tickets are 6 digit numbers from 000001 - 999999 . Meaning there are only 1 million ticket numbers. However, approx 38 million tickets are sold nationwide every lottery drawing. So .... there are upwards of 38-40 sets of 1 million tickets each circulating.

That's why when you look in the vendors brown wooden box, she has a thick booklet of the same number ticket. She might have 38-40 same number tickets stapled in a single booklet.

Each individual ticket is a potential winner, so if you buy 5 same number tickets, you win 5 x the prize. (This is why you'll occasionally hear of someone winning 30 million baht+, when the 1st prize is actually only 6 million baht)

Street vendors purchase their tickets for 72.4 baht from wholesalers, who have purchased from the Govt Lottery Office. So, a vendor makes a bit more than 7 baht on each 80 baht ticket sold.

Unsold tickets remain with the vendor, at her expense, so there's big pressure on her to sell all her tickets. More so as the draw date approaches.
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The lottery is run by Thai Govt Lottery Office. They have a brilliant website, in Thai and English.

www.glo.or.th/

Full results are published on a downloadable pdf from the website, or you can type your ticket number into a search box, to see if you've won anything.

It's actually an interesting website, explaining everything about Thai Govt Lottery.
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The most concise Lottery explanation I've read, and the source of most of the above info is

https://whatsonsukhumvit.com/thai-lottery-how-it-works-lucky-numbers-and-prizes/

You must read this website. It's how I finally came to understand the system. Within the text on the website is a blue colour link "many traders are losing". Highly recommend you also read that particular link. Gives a lot more info.

The prize money indicated on the sukhumvit website is for 1 ticket, but as previously explained above, all tickets are sold as doubles, so you need to double the mentioned prize money.
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Attached to this post is the full results jpeg from 16th Oct'17 drawing.(pdf was too big, so I converted it to jpeg)

Print a copy of this attachment jpeg, then refer to it when reading the whatsonsukhumvit website explaining the prize allocations.
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It will all make sense then, and you will finally understand what all the numbers mean, and how prizes are allocated for various number combinations.

There are prizes for 2,3,5,6 number combinations, which can be in various postions on your 6 digit ticket number. Phwrrrrrrrr .... complicated ? Hell yeah.

The Lambo in my carport ? Only joking, but I'm mildly hopeful that my missus would tell me if she won 30 mill.

[mudcat]

I have always understood it as the only tax 'poor' Thais (or soon to be poor) are willing to pay.  In California the drawing TV show was commonly referred to as "lifestyles of the poor and foolish"". 

Used to buy a single ticket for the wife from time to time and then hit on the solution was to buy a multi-ticket purchase announcing this was the end; the bleeding has stopped.

[Wayne from Aus]

Great research as usual Martin and an interesting post. But can I send you on a little mission? Can you research the workings of the more important illegal lottery that operates at the same time called 'Hu-way' or 'Monkey Game'. Everywhere there is someone running the gigg on the side where the Thai pick single/double or triple digit number and if that number comes up you get paid 100 times your stake. I find this is really where the action is. But buggered if I can understand where these numbers are shown. But to find a piece of paper pinned to a shopfront window, and the Mrs saying 'thats the monkey.' I believe the last lottery's Monkey was 94. All the family were angry because they picked 93. (the age their father was when he died recently). The argument was that they should've chosen 94, because that was his birthday this year. Love the Thai way of thinking.

And how about the story I heard of the Thai guy who went the the temple to seek which number to choose by the Monks. The Monk told him what the lucky number would be and he ended up losing his house from the massive bets to get the Monkey Number in subsequent lotteries.

Regards to all

[Starman]

National Lottery tickets are now sold as single tickes. Each ticket is worth the same, and costs the same, as the doubles used to.

Hu-way is the Thai word for Lottery. The illegal lottery is Hu-way dai din. Meaning underground lottery. "Monkey" is a new one on me.

The numbers in the illegal lottery offers pizes that vary in each village. In our villages the prizes are 70/1 for two numbers and 400/1 for three.

The three number prize comes from the last 3 digits of the jackpot draw. There is a choice of numbers for the 2 number prize. You can choose "up" which is the last 2 numbers of the jackpot draw or "under" which is the 2 numbers that were drawn for the 2000 baht prize, as shown on the list provided by smooth.

[Starman]

On the national lottery there are not any prizes for 5 numbers. Also the 2 number  prize must be the final  2 digits and not anywhere in the sequence. The first 3 number, drawn twice,  draw on the list has to be the first 3 digits The second draw, also drawn twice, are the last 3 digits.

[smoooth2]

How to decipher the result sheet for each Lottery draw. Result pdf is downloadable at

www.glo.or.th/

Your official lottery ticket will have 6 digits. Refer to the attachment to this post.

No.1 - 1st prize. 6,000,000 baht   Ticket number exactly as drawn out.
No.2 - Minor prize. 4,000 baht. 2 sets of 3 numbers. These must be the first 3 numbers of your ticket
No.3 - Minor prize. 4,000 baht. 2 sets of 3 numbers. These must be the last 3 numbers of your ticket
No.4 - Minor prize. 2,000 baht. 1 set of 2 numbers. This must be the last 2 numbers of your ticket
No.5 - Consolation prize. 100,000 baht.  1 number either side of 1st prize number. Bad luck !!
No.6 - 2nd prize.  200,000 baht.  5 random draw new ticket numbers
No.7 - 3rd prize.   80,000 baht.  10 random draw new ticket numbers
No.8 - 4th prize.   40,000 baht.  50 random draw new ticket numbers
No.9 - 5th prize.   20,000 baht.  100 random draw new ticket numbers

[Wayne from Aus]

Thank you Starman and Smooth
For me it was a very interesting to know how it all works. Most of the fellungs I see just wave the sellers of the lottery on. 'Mai ou'. But I find it it interesting how it fits in with the Thai culture, the superstitions of luck/good fortune, their lucky numbers etc. And its also nice to learn how to read the results guide