Japan is hoping the country’s baseball teams don’t object to allowing a new baseball-themed sports lottery product.
On Thursday, Japanese media reported that a meeting was held Wednesday between the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB) and the representatives of the league’s 12 pro teams regarding the launch of a new baseball-themed lottery product.
At present, Japan’s Sports Promotion Lottery is limited to a football-based product run by the government-backed Japan Sports Council. The football lottery generated sales of nearly ¥112b (US$1b) in fiscal 2016.
The football lottery involves a pools-style set-up in which either the lottery player selects his or her favored teams, or the (oddly more popular) Toto-Big version, which relies on a computer to randomly select teams to emerge as winners in their respective matches.
None of the 12 pro baseball teams reportedly offered serious objections to the lottery proposal. The government must still seek the approval of baseball players and umpires, but the expectation is that the new lottery could be up and running by next year.
As with the football lottery, part of the funds raised from the baseball product would be funneled back into the sport. Other funds would go toward the government’s overall funding for sport, which has taken on new urgency in the run-up to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Japanese baseball has a touchy relationship with gambling, having endured numerous scandals dating back to the 1970s in which pro players were exposed as having illegally bet on games. Japan’s government is also sensitive to be seen as offering Japan’s problem gamblers more ways to do themselves harm.
Japan’s lottery sales have been declining steadily since 2005 and the government is doing what it can to reverse this trend and shore up its finances. Last month, the internal affairs ministry announced that it would start selling additional lottery products online starting this October.
