Lotteries, fed up with frozen ticket costs: “They think we are millionaires, but some of us are in trouble” | Economy | EUROtoday

When pesetas have been exchanged for euros in Spain, on January 1, 2002, the tenth of the Christmas Lottery, like many different issues, was rounded up: it went from 3,000 pesetas (about 18 euros) to twenty euros. But there it stayed. The most important product of the lottery administrations has been frozen for 23 years, and the lotteries, who’ve been complaining for a while, are greater than fed up. This 12 months, the run-up to the Christmas Lottery has been accompanied by rising discomfort among the many house owners of administrations, who admit that they’re making extra noise than ever as a result of they’re dropping increasingly more buying energy. First, as a result of they can not elevate the worth of the tenths; later, as a result of the prizes aren’t growing both, and though gross sales are rising, they concern that sooner or later they won’t be as engaging to younger individuals; and eventually, as a result of from every Christmas lottery ticket they solely take a 4.5% fee (90 cents), whereas from the opposite attracts they take 6%. “People think that we are millionaires, because we sell lottery, but we are self-employed like anyone else, and some of us are in financial trouble. We can’t even touch the margin or the product, and meanwhile, the cost of living is rising,” says Jorge Arta, who has an administration of the identical title in Ourense.

Arta can also be vice chairman of ANAPAL, the affiliation of provincial lottery administrations. He explains that, earlier than, having a lottery administration was a secure enterprise with a profitability that is probably not very excessive, however assured. Not anymore. “Of course you can live from an administration, but it no longer provides benefits, what it provides is a salary to get by. Everything has increased and ours has not, we have been with the same conditions for many years,” he explains. In this actuality there are variations: it’s not the identical to have an administration in a city the place rental prices aren’t very excessive as in a metropolis, and it’s not the identical to have the premises in a busy space with numerous enterprise than in an space with much less. But Arta explains that your entire sector, made up of 4,200 factors of sale, is apprehensive: “25% of all administrations bill less than 60,000 euros gross per year, from which all costs must be subtracted. Many say ‘well, for this, I’ll put it up for sale and I’ll go work at Mercadona,'” Arta highlights.

The lottery administrations market the merchandise of the general public firm Sociedad Estado Loterías y Apuestas del Estado (SELAE): the completely different National Lottery video games, the Primitiva, the Bonoloto, the Euromillones or the Quiniela, amongst others. In complete, the product catalog is made up of 103 completely different raffles with completely different periodicities. But as Borja Muñiz, president of ANAPAL, explains, crucial for all administrations is the Christmas Lottery draw. On common, it represents roughly 40% of the annual gross sales of every administration. And along with the Niño raffle, which is widely known on Three Kings Day, they account for greater than half of gross sales.

“The Christmas one is very important, and coincidentally it is the only one in which we charge less per tenth. We charge 4.5% while in the rest of the draws, also in the Niño one, we charge 6%,” says Muñiz. This is the primary demand: that the commissions be all equal to six%. “It is the time of year when we work the most, some have to hire extra staff, and it is when we earn less commission,” complains Guillermo Rodríguez, 57, who has been a lottery operator in Zaragoza for 29 years. Rodríguez works along with his spouse, and between the 2 of them “it gets done”, however he admits that he has to work lengthy hours: “I leave early in the morning to deliver to bars and restaurants that have our numbers, then I spend all day in the administration, and then I go back to delivering and I get home at eleven at night,” he explains. “The most famous people don’t have to worry, but the rest of us have to move to put the numbers in,” he says. “Not everyone is Doña Manolita,” Muñiz recollects. In addition to all of the bills—workers, web, lease, electrical energy, and many others.—there’s one other expense that finally ends up being nearly mounted for lotteries: the lottery itself that they purchase. “I spend around 400 euros on the lottery, I buy 10 numbers that I have, and others for my family,” says Arta. “I do play, during the week I also play some primitive games, then some numbers that you see every day and catch your attention… but I’m reducing, because it doesn’t work,” says Rodríguez.

X-ray of the tenth

Of every Christmas Lottery tenth, which prices 20 euros, 70% goes to the prizes. And 30% goes to SELAE, from which administration bills, promoting bills and commissions to lotteries, amongst others, come from. This has not modified since 2002, the final time the worth of the tenth was raised, when beforehand the worth was up to date roughly each ten years. The president of ANAPAL has a chunk of data that illustrates, nonetheless, how the prices of getting an administration have modified: “23 years ago we had to sell 550 tenths to pay a worker. Now we have to sell 1,470, almost triple that.” That is why the affiliation asks to boost the tenth to 25 euros as a primary step, though it believes that it ought to already be at 30 euros.

The prizes have been growing, as balls have been added to the pot till reaching 100,000 numbers, however no extra may be added, and the final time the Jackpot went up was in 2011, when it reached the present 400,00 euros, which after retention, stays at 328,000 euros. ANAPAL asks that it rise to 500,000 euros. Muñiz clarifies that gross sales of tenths proceed to develop, however fears that the prizes are now not engaging, particularly for younger individuals, as a result of in some cities they’re now not even sufficient to purchase an residence. “Sales of tenths are increasing, but they no longer compensate at all for the loss of purchasing power,” he explains.

Manuel Caballero obtained a license in Seville in 1998, which is the place the title of his administration comes from. He summarizes very clearly how the enterprise has advanced: “At that time you could live well, we had money to go to a place for a week. resortbut for seven or eight years we haven’t even been able to go on vacation.” Caballero already led a series of protests in 2021, which they called “Wednesdays in the Sun”, which ended up forcing the company to raise the Christmas Lottery commission by 0.5%, to the current 4.5%. “They did it to shut our mouths, but it’s a shame the conditions we’re in. Lotteries are the jewel in the crown, we give the State 3,000 million euros a year, clean, and they don’t worry about us,” he says.

Caballero can also be a part of a small group, now made up of 56 lotteries, that are the remaining ones of the hundred who as soon as refused to vary their administrative concession for a business contract, when in 2009 the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero needed to denationalise Lotteries, one thing that finally didn’t occur. “Now these 56 of us who remain cannot sell the concession or pass it on to our children, it was a punishment for opposing that,” he explains. However, he stays very connected to the enterprise. At 78 years previous, he’s already retired, however he accompanies his spouse, who runs the institution, all over the place. “He who has a lottery administration dies being a lotteryman,” he says.