Romanians have spent 49 million dollars to buy tickets for the lottery since the beginning of the year. The figures, released by the National Lottery, are huge, considering that only 24 million dollars were invested last year on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, both by Romanian and foreign investors.
Moreover, since the first days of January, the Romanian investors have sold shares worth five million dollars more than the stocks they bought. Furthermore, the assets of mutual funds went up only 7 million dollars last year, with new deposits accounting for most of this money.
"We have cashed 1,588.9 billion ROL for Loto 6/49 in the first six weeks of this year, while sales had amounted to 2,618.5 billion ROL for the entire last year," Adrian Albu, the National Lottery's marketing manager was quoted as saying by Mediafax yesterday.
Technically, the 49 million dollars invested by Romanians in lottery tickets this year account for 65% of the National Lottery's full year sales in 2003.
Since the Romanian Lottery gets to keep half of this amount, 24 million dollars entered the company's accounts in only six weeks, from the Loto 6/49 game alone. Generally, Loto 6/49 accounts for 60% of the lottery's revenues.
The "collective hysteria" triggered by Loto 6/49 is mainly due to the carryover funds, which have now reached the record level of 4.8 million dollars.
Given the size of the top prize, the Romanian Lottery has already announced that the carryover funds, accumulated until February 29, may be distributed in equal shares to the second and third tiers, during a special draw scheduled for March 7. This solution will only be applied if no one manages to pocket the top prize by that time.
The National Lottery's turnover has soared in the past three years, in 2003 especially, allowing the company to make up for the spectacular losses incurred until the mid '90s.
According to the financial statements submitted to the Ministry of Finances and to the company's estimates for 2003, the National Lottery's turnover went up from 55.23 million dollars in 2001 to $65.38 million in 2002, only to surge again last year, when it actually doubled to 131.03 million dollars.
A similar trend was posted by the gross profit, which went up from 15.22 million dollars in 2001 to $16.97m in 2002 and $42.58 million in 2003.
According to the law, the Romanian Lottery is a commercial company of national public interest and deals with the exclusive organisation and operation of various games of chance, as the sole operator on the Romanian territory.
laurentiu.ispir@zf.ro
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