By McPherse Thompson, Staff Reporter
From left, Peter Stewart, chairman of Supreme Ventures Limited; Ian Levy, director and Paul Hoo, president listen attentively to a point made by the general manager of GTech Corporation, Brian Drew at this week's press conference held at the Terra Nova Hotel, St.Andrew.
SUPREME Ventures, operators of the "Lucky 5" and "Cash Pot" games of chance, has grossed $6.8 billion in sales in its first 11 months of operation in Jamaica, according to the company's president Paul Hoo.
The company, which grew the local lottery market from an estimated $3.5 billion to some $9 billion in under one year, has also planned to launch another game next month to increase the market to more than $12 billion for the calendar year 2002.
The third game, a Kino-type sweepstakes for which the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission had granted Supreme Ventures a licence at the same time it was offered permits for the two current games, will be launched in June as part of its first anniversary celebration.
Speaking at a press conference at the Terra Nova Hotel, St. Andrew on Wednesday, Mr. Hoo said the company's highest monthly earnings from sales on "Lucky 5" and "Cash Pot" were made during March when it raked in $975.5 million.
During the 11 months to May 15, 2002, there were almost 743,000 winners, who were paid more than $4.7 billion in prize money, he said. Over the same period, Supreme Ventures contributed more than $300 million from its daily sales to the Government's coffers to be used for health and early childhood education projects through the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture.
Part of the funds would be used by the Ministry of Health to upgrade hospitals' infrastructure, procure equipment and for training, he said.
According to Mr. Hoo, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education has approved the Ministerial Board's decision to allocate $90 million of funds received from Supreme Ventures to refurbish 60 early childhood educational institutions across the island. The refurbishing will be carried out over the summer holidays and are expected to be completed in time for the start of the new school year, he said.
Another $10 million has also been earmarked to cover the cost of scholarships for teachers at the pre-primary level, he added.
Since its inception last June, Mr. Hoo said, Supreme Ventures has paid $691.3 million to the Government in taxes and fees.
The company's network has grown to more than 650 "and we are expanding daily," said the president. "We have had an overwhelming response from people interested in becoming our retail agents," said Mr. Hoo. "Unfortunately we have had to put the evaluation of terminal requests on hold due to the large backlog that we currently have."
However, Mr. Hoo said they were hoping to have up to 750 terminals operating by their anniversary date on June 25, and 850 by September this year. Supreme Ventures will also be pursuing other non-gaming related business ventures that could be delivered using the existing technology, he said.
According to the president, Supreme Ventures has delivered on its promises to the Government when they applied for and eventually received the licence in January last year. Among the achievements, he said, were the creation of 28 jobs at Supreme Ventures, another 50 at GTECH Corporation which supplied the lottery technology service, and about 1,200 to 1,500 others at retail locations that sold tickets for the games.
Mr. Hoo said Supreme Ventures has also invested more than $500 million in a state-of-the-art lottery technology system, which include a wireless communication network, specialised point-of-sale terminals and a central data centre.
