This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on August 8, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The government plans to reduce the number of Tuesday special draws of number forecast operators (NFOs) beginning next year in a bid to reduce the social problems that may arise from gambling, according to Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.

“The government plans to reduce the number of special draws of all NFOs in 2019 such as Magnum, Sports Toto and Da Ma Cai as requested by the public, so that it does not increase their financial burden.

“The new government will be ready to reduce special draws compared to the previous government which retained the existing number of special draws.

“The move to reduce the number of special draws is to cut down the number of gambling days, so that gambling activities will not lead to social problems such as gambling addiction,” he said during the minister’s question and answer session in Parliament yesterday.

Guan Eng was answering a question posed by Kluang member of parliament Wong Shu Qi, who wanted to know if the government plans to allow NFOs to continue holding the special draws next year.

Guan Eng added that the new policy will be announced in Budget 2019, which is scheduled to be tabled on Nov 2, 2018.

“We want to give some time for the operators to prepare themselves. We do not want to do something in a hurry. Notice will be given to them to reduce this (special draws).”

The special draws were initiated by the previous Barisan Nasional government in 1999 to help raise funds for the government after the Nipah virus outbreak.

Last year, about 22 special Tuesday draws were approved for operators such as Magnum, Sports Toto and Da Ma Cai, Guan Eng said.

Meanwhile, Guan Eng also shared that taxes collected from NFOs rose to RM238 million in 2017, from RM80.4 million in 1999.

“Initially, when special draws started in 1999, we collected about RM80.4 million sin tax and we saw this increase to RM238 million in 2017, an average RM200 million a year after 1999,” he said.

Guan Eng said the sin tax from the special draws was managed through a trust fund to finance education programmes, project developments, sports activities, and programmes related to welfare, culture and health.