Prime Minister introduces new post-Brads lotteries regime

By Aaron Humes: Three weeks after the last Sunday Lottery Draw under Brads Gaming Group Limited, a new regime is being introduced to return a tradition that was first established 70 years ago.

Prime Minister and Minister of Finance John Briceño introduced amendments to the Lotteries Control Act to provide for the new management of the system after Brads’ license was withdrawn by the Lotteries Committee on April 26.

“The plan is to establish a Government-owned company that will have its own legislation that defines its key functions and responsibilities. This company, which Government will establish as the Belize Government Lotteries Limited (BGLL), will be required to promote and conduct lottery schemes and distribute all the winnings to the NHI [National Health Insurance] and Official Charities Fund, from which we hope we will have monies for sports for young people and hopefully some for education,” the P.M. said.

BGLL will have a board of directors and identified officers, under which there will be four Master Agents spread in northern, western, eastern, and southern regions identified by tender, working from a digital platform that will be built to have digital and analog sales, subject to agreement and agreements for payment of winnings by sub-agents up to a certain amount, after which the winnings must be collected at the main agent office.

The new system will work through cellular capacity rather than paper (so no more ‘PUP boledo’ as it was infamously called) and records will be kept at the central office.

“We are doing this right. While we know Belizeans miss their boledo, we want to ensure that Boledo is once again Belizean, for Belizeans, and that it is properly administered to allow for the profits to be used for the development of our nation,” the Prime Minister concluded.

Earlier, the P.M. noted that the Brads regime had amassed a total of $128 million in profit in its first ten years; their successors recorded $50 million plus alone in 2022.

The bill will be taken through all its stages today and is expected to pass to the Senate.

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