PCSO to push for more lotto outlets

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) will push for the opening of more lotto outlets around the country after the successful launch of the new, state-of-the-art Philippine Lottery System (PLS) earlier this month.

The tech upgrade put in place under the PLS will enable the opening of more “traditional” lotto outlets, PCSO general manager and vice chairman of the board Mel Robles said in a recent interview.

“Definitely, we will increase the income of traditional outlets. That’s why I have ordered management to implement the opening up of more (outlets), we will accept more (applications for) outlets,” Robles told The STAR.

The PCSO has 4,600 lotto outlets nationwide and the traditional outlets were seeing higher sales as a result of more efficient systems under the PLS, he said.

On Oct. 2, the PCSO issued an advisory on the resumption of the acceptance of applications for lotto outlets, which was suspended for the launch of the PLS.

Robles said that the opening of more lotto outlets will not be negatively affected by the scheduled rollout of the one-year test run of the electronic lotto or e-lotto system next month.

The PCSO signed on Aug. 30 a memorandum of agreement with listed lotto technology systems provider Pacific Online Systems Corp. (POSC) for the trial run of e-lotto.

The POSC is part of a joint venture that bagged the five-year contract bid out by the PCSO in 2021 to implement the PLS for a winning bid of P5.8 billion.