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(AGC) Alberta Stock Exchange) Next BII ????????
Financial Post , Tuesday, April 6 ,1999
Vietnamese get lucky with a little imported Canadian culture:ONLINE LOTTERIES
A lottery along the lines of Super 7 and 6/49 will soon be available in Vietnam thanks to an entrepreneurial initiative by Calgary-based Applied Gaming Solutions of Canada Inc.AGS Canada's only "online"lottery system provider, is bringing Vietnam its first such lottery, with a cash prize of $100.000. The first ticket is expected to be sold in Hanoi next month."Lotteries are one of the world's biggest industries,"said David Aftergood, founder and chief executive of AGS."We've managed to leverage ourselves into it."He points to
Statistics that show worldwide lottery sales were more than $116.8-billion (US) in 1997, 78% of those sales coming from North America. MrAftergood chose Vietnam as a place to start a new lottery because the global market is growing, with more than 200 lottery applications outstanding in 89 countries.Vietnam's existing lotteries include scratch tickets and manual paper contests,wich generate revenues of about $1.2-billion (US) annually.But Mr.Aftergood said those systems are not foolproof and problems of inaccuracy and /or fraud can result. An online lottery, the same system used in lotto 6/49,is tamper free ,he said AGS will receive 4 % of the gross sales of the new lottery for each of the first five years of its seven-year contract in Vietnam, and 1% in the final two years. The Vietnam lottery system is the company's first big venture since it was incorporated in 1995. AGS began trading on the Alberta Stock Exchange in June, 1997.About $6 million was invested in infrastructure and administration costs to launch the lottery in Vietnam and Mr.Aftergood said he expects the company to earn up to $40-MILLION in revenue over the seven year contract.
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