Earnings to the National Health Insurance & the Official Charities Fund

Boledo has always belonged to the government of Belize. The license that it had issued to Brads to operate it since 2010 was revoked and ended on May 2 of this year. The government is now preparing to resume the Belizean tradition. It will now be operated in the right way and for the right reasons. No date is set yet for the inaugural draw but the Belize Government Lotteries is on an all-out information campaign on social media and traditional advertisement outlets. Boledo will be back soon. Word is that there will be an app and all. Here is the Prime Minister explaining the legislation needed to make the new Boledo selling open and transparent. Eventually, the winning numbers will be a surprise to all as it should be of course.

Prime Minister John Briceño presentation on May 19 at the House of Representatives:

“Madam Speaker since 1953 we have had boledo in Belize. Over these more than a half century boledo has become a part of our Belizean Culture. From 1953 until 2010 -- for 57 years, government legislated and operated lottery in Belize. Then in 2010, the Barrow Administration gave the exclusive license to operate and manage boledo to Brads Gaming Company Limited of #2 Farmers Market, Belize City. This license expired in 2020, an election year, but they did not care about that, the lame duck Barrow Administration renewed the license to Brads through to 2030 -- another 10 years. Madam Speaker, Lotteries in Belize, as in other places in Central America and beyond, is a lucrative multi-million-dollar activity. Lottery requires a great deal of resources for oversight and administration, for sure a lot more than is currently provided by Brads Gaming Group Limited. For example, in Panama and Costa Rica, their national lottery is administered by Governments, and you know what they do with the profits from lottery? The profits from their lottery are used to fund social causes.

In Canada, in the Manitoba province the government through the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries Corporation issues and distributes lotteries and it regulates through its Lotteries authority. You know what they use their lottery revenues for? They use it to support healthcare, education, social services, housing and infrastructure.

From 2010 to 2020, how many houses did you hear the UDP build from boledo revenues? How many hospital beds did they buy? How many streets did they fix?

From big to small countries, the business of lottery is something that governments pay close atten-