PCSO can make more Filipino millionaires

I read that the Philippine Charity and Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is introducing another lotto game—the Ultra lotto or 6/58 (“PCSO rolls out new lotto game with higher prizes,” News, 1/15/15). To be honest, I am against another lotto game. The current system is more than enough to accommodate the bettors’ chances to become millionaires. Adding another one is somewhat an overkill.

The PCSO is banking again on enormous jackpot prizes to attract/lure people into parting with their money. Are the people’s interest waning in the megamillion jackpot prizes of the existing four lotto games, such that the PCSO needs to add one more game? Is the number of bettors dwindling such that the PCSO must put up a much bigger prize in the hope of additional titillating more a primal instinct of human beings?

If such is the case, I have three suggestions that might help increase the number of lotto bettors:

First—there are four ongoing lotto systems, all costing P20 per combination. Why don’t they return two of these systems to their former bet of P10 per combination?

Second—fix the prizes for second, third and fourth winners as was done before instead of setting them based on total sales as is now being done. The former system of giving prizes was more generous than the present.

Third—this may be an out-of-the-box suggestion, but in my sincere opinion, if adopted, this will make many Filipinos millionaires. What about setting a maximum for every jackpot prize? When the jackpot prize reaches the maximum limit, with no one hitting the six correct numbers, it should be subdivided among those who got five correct numbers. For example, limit the 6/49 jackpot prize to P100 million. This way, many bettors will win, thereby creating goodwill and, in effect, truly helping more Filipinos. This is just the central idea of the suggestion; the details are another matter.

—AERIC P. BERNARDINO, aeric_bernardino@yahoo.com