The Hindu Business Line : Sugal & Damani bids for UK National Lottery

Sugal & Damani Lottery Agency Pvt Ltd has made a pre-bid registration for running the UK National Lottery. The pre-bid registration signifies the company's intention to bid for the licence to run the lottery for the specified period, which is for 10 years from February 2009.

Mr Kamlesh Vijay, Chief Executive Officer, told Business Line on Monday that a special purpose vehicle, possibly with British partners, would be created for running the UK National Lottery.

While this is the first time that Sugal & Damani is zeroing on an opportunity outside the country, the company is also concurrently eyeing opportunities in Africa and Asia, Mr Vijay said. He did not want to elaborate on this.

Lottery business

Sugal & Damani has been in the business of running lotteries in the country for over 30 years. Mr Vijay explained that lotteries have been Government-run in India since 1969. The State Governments have the powers to run lotteries through the Lottery Regulation Act, 1999. The nature of the business has also in the meantime changed, from paper-ticket based to computer-based.

Sugal & Damani operates in three states — Maharashtra, Punjab and West Bengal — where it has over 15,000 on-line terminals.

It will soon start operations in Karnataka and also in Tamil Nadu, Mr Vijay said.

"We represent the State Governments in marketing the lotteries," he said. The marketing rights are, however, not exclusive, though they may be so for some specific lotteries.

Last year, Rs 4,000 crore worth of commercial transactions took place through Sugal & Damani.

The Sugal & Damani group was promoted by Mr N. Sugalchand Jain and Mr G.N. Damani.

The group has interests in a range of businesses including stock broking, real estate, jewellery, information technology and tourism.