Sri Lanka Lottery Dealers' Association threatened to stop selling lotteries if the government increased the price of a lottery ticket to Rs 30 from January 1.

Speaking to the media yesterday the Lottery Dealers' Association Chairman said that around 4.5 million lottery tickets are sold each day. The government obtains a revenue of Rs 20 million per day from these sales, he added.

However, the increase of the price to Rs 30 will affect the sales as people will find it hard to spend such an amount for one ticket, he added.

If the government cannot decrease the price, it should increase the commission paid to them and also increase the prizes handed out to the winners, the association further said.

The SLLDA also said that they will hold a protest against the proposed move on January 3 in Colombo.