SMALL Town Lottery (STL) operations lifted gross revenues of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) last year for a total of P43.37 billion, which is merely P2.9-billion short of its target.
In its year-end report, the PCSO said its gross revenues jumped by 133 percent last year from P18.58 billion in 2020, marking its recovery after government suspended gaming operations following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the agency failed to hit its full-year gross revenue goal of P46.36 billion by 6.45 percent.
Of all the PCSO games, the agency collected half of its revenues for the year from STL at P21.55 billion, more than triple the amount earned from the mass-based local lottery in 2020.
“STL has the highest earnings in 2021 compared to 2020, having a 278-percent increase from the previous year. This is attributed to the increasing number of authorized agent corporations (AACs) operating STL from 59 AACs in 2020 to 82 AACs in 2021,” according to the PCSO report.
Next to STL, the second biggest revenue earner for PCSO is lotto wherein it collected P12.75 billion, an 87-percent jump from P6.82 billion in 2020 as fewer lockdowns were imposed.
This was followed by digit games (P7.8 billion), instant sweepstakes (P954.36 million) and Keno (P306.6 million). “Peryahan” games remain suspended since February 2020.
Nonetheless, the agency extended P2.4 billion for its charity assistance and medical assistance programs to over 287,000 individuals and over 2,600 local government units (LGUs), institutions and hospitals.
As part of its mandatory contributions, the PCSO allocated P1.64 billion to the Universal Health Care (UHC) program. Under the law, the agency is mandated to appropriate 40 percent of its charity fund to the UHC program.
Apart from this, the state-run firm also turned over P1 billion in additional dividends to the Department of Finance through the Bureau of the Treasury. It also paid a total of P12.42 billion in taxes during the period.
The agency also disbursed P251 million as part of its mandatory contributions to other government institutions and released P202.1 million as lotto shares to various LGUs and P117.89 million as STL shares to the National Bureau of Investigation, the Philippine National Police and LGUs.