What if state lotteries dared to dream?

State lottery monopolies are an anomaly, said Ho Kwon Ping, founder and Executive Chairman of The Banyan Tree Group, in his keynote address to the World Lottery Convention in Singapore this morning. Inevitably there is a price to pay for allowing an anomaly to persist – namely the constraints imposed on state lotteries to the diversification and cross-border expansion of their business.

But instead of resisting change as the rest of the world economy globalizes, what if state lottery organizations decided to be agents of global change themselves?

What if they negotiated a new social contract that gave them a bigger space for their operations? What if a process of international consolidation spurned a new generation of megalottery operators that could compete globally with casinos and online gambling sites?

Not only would these new global operators overcome the inefficiencies of the existing model. They would have all the pieces in place to emerge as vigorous players in global philanthropy – stronger than the Gates Foundation and Warren Buffet combined, and more powerful promoters by far of such global good causes as poverty reduction and the fight to save the planet.