By Samuel Ansah Boateng
The next time you want to try your luck on lotteries in Ghana, you have to be extra vigilant, not to fall into the hands of unlicensed lotto operators whose sole interest is to milk their subscribers.
One of such illegal operators is Porsche Lotteries, whose office is at Lapaz, a suburb of Accra and run by one Samuel Otoo Lartey.
On Sunday 12th March, this year, about 17 lotto writers who work as a group staked an amount of Four Thousand, One Hundred and Two cedis (GHS4,102.00) with Porche Lotto, with an expected return of One Million and Seventy-seven Thousand, Six Hundred Ghana Cedis (1,077,600.00), this paper has gathered.
According to the group members, their stakes were successful, and in their excitement, thronged the premises of Porche Lotteries to redeem their monies. To their shock, they were informed by Porche’s management that although their stakes were successful, they were not in the position to pay them.
‘’one of their Managers, one Emmanuel, asked us to speak to their main boss, who said was in Kumasi, and asked that we come to Kumasi for our monies, but we had to turn that invitation down, because we felt it was dangerous, especially when the payment could just be arranged here in Accra’’, they noted.
Frustrated by the turn of events, the group said they lodged a complaint with the Dansoman Divisional Police, to which the Police invited a staff member of Porche Lotto called Lambert, who was on duty on the 12th and 13th of March, and admitted to the police ‘’that we have indeed won the lottery, but for reasons unknown to him, payment had not been made to us’’, they added.
However, when Mr. Samuel Otoo, Director of Porche Lotteries was contacted, he denied that no such win has been recorded so far in his office, and that they were mere allegations forged by the Lotto Writers to run his business down.
Reacting to the story, Goodfellow Dei Offei, Public Relations Manager of the National Lotteries Authority (NLA) said they have received the complaint from the Lotto Writers through their Lawyer, and were doing everything possible to make sure justice is served.
According to him, Porche Lotteries has not been licensed, and it would be difficult to compel them to pay the winners. ‘’our Legal Department is handling the matter, we can only take criminal actions against Porche Lotteries for operating an illegal business, which is clearly against our laws, and apply sanctions’’, he said.
In recent times, the NLA has assured the general public its commitment to collaborate with security agencies to undertake exercises to clamp down all unlicensed and illegal lotto operators.
The licensed lotto operators according to the NLA for Third-Party Collaborations and Private Lotto Operators for 2023 licensing included KGL Technology Limited, Afri Lotto Systems Limited, Blue Star Hi-Tech Company Limited, Fortunes Synergy Limited, WuLucky Ghana Limited, Zeta Technologies Limited and Global Fun Ghana Limited.
The licensed Private Lotto-Operators also included Accurate Giant Limited, Alpha Lotto Limited, From-Home Company Limited, Glovita Lottery Limited, Lotto and Lotteries Limited.
The rest also included Miwor Kakra Yebedi nti Limited, Rand Lottery Limited, Sadaco-Hope Lottery Ghana, Wulucky Ghana Limited, Zacdow Company Limited and Zinbax Construction Limited.
Stay tuned.
