Japan to mull pro baseball lottery

February 22, 2018

Tokyo- The Nippon Professional Baseball Organization will start full discussions on a proposed professional baseball lottery, informed sources said Thursday.

The lottery may start as early as 2019, according to the sources.

At a meeting on Wednesday in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, representatives of the country's 12 professional baseball teams agreed to consider adding the sport to the Sports Promotion Lottery, the sources said.

The existing lottery, run by the government-linked Japan Sports Council, covers only soccer at present. The revenue is used to promote sports, including by providing subsidies to sports organizations.

The envisioned baseball lottery would be a type in which tickets show randomly predicted baseball game results, making it unnecessary for buyers to have knowledge of the sport.

The country's baseball world was rocked by a series of game-fixing scandals around 1970 and illegal baseball gambling by pitchers of the professional club Yomiuri Giants that came to light in 2015.

Japan considered introducing a baseball lottery to raise funds for the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. Discussions on such a lottery were rekindled in the 1990s. In both cases, however, the baseball world expressed its opposition.

In 2015, the baseball world discussed the idea of adding the sport to the Sports Promotion Lottery. But some baseball club owners cited concerns, including possible interference by antisocial groups.

At present, none of the 12 clubs clearly oppose the proposed introduction of a baseball lottery, informed sources said. Jiji Press