Singapore Pools to help winners hang on to winnings

SINGAPORE – Winning the lottery is not easy. Losing those winnings, on the other hand, sometimes is.

To help people deal with a windfall, Singapore Pools launched the Care for Winners programme on Friday (March 4). This programme is aimed at people who win S$100,000 and more. Just last month, two people jointly won the S$13.9 million TOTO Hongbao Draw jackpot while one person took home the S$9.5 million jackpot in the regular TOTO Draw.

For such people, the gambling operator has developed a range of English and Chinese collaterals, including brochures, videos and posters. When people collect their winnings, Singapore Pools staff will provide financial planning tips developed by programme partner MoneySENSE.

In one brochure, suggestions for being a “Winner in Life” included paying off your debts, not splurging, investing wisely and donating to charity.

This new programme replaces the previous Winners Wealth Management Programme which was introduced in 2010. Under the old programme, major banks in Singapore would provide financial planning information to large prize winners who choose to approach them.

According to Mr Tay Boon Khai, the head of community engagement and responsible gaming at Singapore Pools, feedback from customers was that the information in the old programme was not clear and concise enough. “So like any other programme, we wanted to refresh it, (to) make the information simpler to understand and drive home our message,” he said.

Singapore Pools chief executive officer Seah Chin Siong said that while they do not keep track of what winners do with their winnings, there have been cases overseas of people losing their winnings "within a relatively short period of time".

"They ended up broke because they splurged before considering their long-term financial goals or failed to seek sound financial advice on preserving or growing their newfound wealth... I think it would not surprise us if there were similar cases closer to home," he added.

Singapore Pools gave out almost 60,000 cheques for prizes of S$5,000 and above last year.