KOCHI: Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), in association with the Department of Lottery, is organising an innovative initiative that seeks to resolve two major issues plaguing the field of lucky draw of numbers. Named ‘Lottery Challenge’, the mission is to weed out fake tickets and bring in QR code facilities that will lead to efficient and accurate disbursal of prize money.
For this, the Department of Lottery has invited applications from startups at https:// startupmission.kerala. gov.in/pages/lotterychallenge on or before August 15. The search is for a machine that will answer both problems. Lottery Challenge has been conceived amid the department’s conduct of seven weekly lotteries and a monthly lottery besides six bumper lotteries a year.
Authorities, pointing to an increasing prevalence of fake lottery tickets, said the department relies on manual checks and verification to identify fake tickets. To address this cumbersome and time-consuming process, the department is seeking a machine that can verify the authenticity of lottery tickets quickly and accurately to save time, reduce errors and increase the reliability of the prize disbursal process.
The same machine must also scan the QR code of the tickets at a faster pace, which will lead to efficient and accurate disbursal of prize money. This is to help avoid the task of scanning tickets that win prizes at the 35 offices across Kerala.
On average, 300,000 tickets are manually scanned daily, leading to considerable delay and errors. The Department of State Lotteries, under the Ministry of Finance, has the Secretary (Taxes Department) of the Kerala government as the authority specifically appointed to organise lottery and to regulate the sale of other state lotteries.
Flawed manual checks
The lottery department relies on manual checks and verification to identify fake tickets. The current process is time-consuming, requiring massive human resources. On average, 300,000 lottery tickets are manually scanned daily, leading to considerable delay and errors