A VAT lottery participant has taken home close to €8,000 after winning the monthly fiscal receipt raffle 11 times in less than three years.
This lucky person’s winnings ranged between €233, the minimum prize, and €1,626, for an overall sum of €7,887.
The winnings cover the period between January 2018 and this month.
Within the same period another multiple winner stood out, taking home €3,818 after having his fiscal receipts drawn on seven occasions.
Introduced in the mid-1990s following the introduction of Value Added Tax, the lottery works by a simple mechanism whereby participants stand to win 100 times the amount of the fiscal receipt they submitted for the draw.
The fact that there is no limit to the number of receipts which can be sent for each draw, nor a capping on the number of times a participant can win, has invariably fuelled debate if not raised eyebrows.
Apart from these cases, flagged to Times of Malta by a reader, there was an instance in 2013 when the same participant scooped up €23,000 by winning two prizes within the same draw.
No limit to the number of receipts for each draw
The lottery falls under the responsibility of the Finance Ministry through the Commissioner for Revenue. The overall allocation for winnings this year is of €750,000.
A 2018 National Audit Office report had found that an estimated three million receipts were being sent each month. Questions sent to the ministry had not been answered by the time of writing.
The number of monthly winners varies as fiscal receipts continue to be drawn until the monthly prize fund of around €59,000 is reached.
Each draw, for which the public is invited, is held at the Public Lotto Stores, at Wied il-Kbir in Qormi, and the identity card number of the winners published in newspapers and on the ministry’s website.
Last year, the ministry had said it saw no need to reform the lottery.
A spokesman had insisted there were enough checks and balances to ensure a fair and transparent process, saying the draw was held under the supervision of a board composed of a notary from the Office of the Notary to Government and representatives of the finance ministry, the Commissioner for Revenue and the public.
The latter official is appointed by the finance minister while a representative of the National Audit Office is also present as an observer.
Between 2002 and 2003, 11 people were charged with tampering with the draw.
During court proceedings, it emerged that the ‘winning’ receipt would be placed into a groove in the urn, from where it would be picked up during the draw.
Following this scandal the lottery was revamped and new procedures put in place to minimise the risk of abuse.
In 2018, the NAO had flagged a list of issues, including the size of the urn, which it deemed too small for the fiscal receipts to be adequately shuffled. The ministry had pledged to address the matter.