"If I were a rich man" may become a popular song in Turkey these days as the National Lottery announced a record TL3 trillion ($4.4 million) grand prize for the New Year's Eve lottery.
The celebration would have been bigger had the announcement not dashed hopes of even a larger grand prize: TL 5 trillion ($7.3 million), as was suggested earlier last week by State Minister Fikret Unlu. National Lottery Directorate General Manager Ilham Kusmenoglu said Unlu had proposed the TL 5 trillion in accordance with many ticket sellers' requests, but that the directorate had decided to offer the lower sum. The dealers had said the current prizes left them in a bad situation.
Kusmenoglu said he outlined the negative effects of a grand prize of TL 5 trillion to Unlu.
"I persuaded the minister to come down to TL 3 trillion and then the ticket sellers interjected again," he said. "And I said that the tickets have already been printed and that we found even TL 3 trillion high. And so public opinion thought that we were contradicting the minister. ``I wanted the minister to say that he wanted TL 5 trillion but that the directorate insisted on three. I didn't even want the TL 3 trillion prize; in fact, what I wanted was TL 2 trillion (about $3 million). We say that inflation is at 35 percent in Turkey and then we attempt to raise the grand lottery prize three times. This is irritating." Kusmenoglu related that many ticket sellers said that a grand prize of TL5 trillion would save the directorate as well as themselves.
"The sellers always claim that, but selling a lot of tickets in just one draw won't be enough to save us," he said. "If we give TL5 trillion as the New Year grand prize then people will think that the normal TL1 trillion (about $1.46 million) prize is too low. We tried to tell the sellers this, but they weren't satisfied." As for Unlu, he said he had only made a proposal to the directorate and that the executive authority on the issue was the directorate and he respected the directorate's decision. – (Albawaba-MEBG)
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
