In August 1, 2008 I blogged how bad the Victorian and Tasmanian switch to Intralot. Then several readers thought it was bad but that it would get better. Well it has not got better.
The Lottery Agents Association in Victoria now claim since it happened more than 500 of their operators are losing 15 percent or more of their lottery income and estimates the government's revenue losses at $900,000 a week. That seems conservative as the Sunday Herald Sun released last week here, the conclusion of a detailed sales breakdown of Intralot’s figures including these figures.
204 of Intralot's 769 agents lost money between September and January last year - while 196 agents made less than $22 a week.
Intralot is likely to fall $226 million short of its sales target of $293 million this financial year.
Intralot admit there are problems and blame their lotto agents for the appalling sales figures, the Victorian people for not understanding its games, Tattersall's and Optus. Now this part of the story I thought was particularly interesting.
And rather than apologising to the retailers who have paid up to $10,000 to sell Intralot's products, Mr. Katakis says the company should have been tougher with them, as they are overseas.
"Our problem with the retailers is the following - we never imposed any sales targets," he said.
….
"We say 'OK, these are the rules, if you are going to sell you will make money. If you don't I'm going to take away your equipment'."
I wonder what they are planning to do to those people that paid those fees. On these figures, I doubt many retailers would have a hope of making any sales budget.
NSW newsagents should be very concerned about the current review into NSW lotteries there.
