Anti-gambling advocacy groups are calling on lawmakers to revise a new bill amending the law on the Government Lottery Office (GLO), which they say contains a loophole that may be abused to authorise the GLO's board to allow online lotteries.
The groups, led by groups calling themselves the "People's Network for Lottery Reform", "Network of Non-gambling Young Generations" and the "Stop Gambling Network", pointed out that the GLO's board shouldn't be granted the authority to consider and approve any proposal for the GLO to issue a new government lottery format, according to a source.
They submitted their opinions on what should be corrected in the bill before the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) began deliberating it on Thursday.
Any proposed changes to both the old and new formats should go to the cabinet instead of the GLO's board as proposed in the draft amendment bill, the groups said.
For the new format of the government lottery in particular, it should be clearly stated in the bill that only studies and public hearings on a new format of the lottery will be allowed, not a proposal to issue any new lottery format, they said.
NLA vice president Surachai Liengboonlertchai, who accepted a written statement from the groups, said there were actually several points of concern raised at the past meeting on the bill.
The possible loophole pointed out by the groups was one of the key points causing concerns among the two sides at the meetings, he said, adding that he was to try to distribute copies of the groups' opinions about the bill to the NLA members later yesterday.
