The traditional physical sweepstakes ticket, the kind Filipinos once purchased from vendors outside churches, in markets, and along city sidewalks, no longer exists at the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
But PCSO General Manager Melquiades “Mel” Robles said Saturday that plans to bring it back are being studied, not out of nostalgia but because going fully digital has cut off the elderly and persons with disabilities who used sweepstakes ticket vending as their primary source of livelihood.
Robles made the disclosure in an interview on DZRH News program Special on Saturday on September 19, responding to a question about whether physical sweepstakes tickets still exist.
The PCSO general manager said the disappearance of the physical ticket was a natural consequence of PCSO’s shift toward digital gaming platforms, but that the shift came with a cost that is now being reckoned with.
“Wala nang ganyan, sir. Wala na ngayon. But you know, there are proposals to bring it back,” Robles said.
Robles said there is romance in the physical ticket—the tactile experience of holding a sweepstakes stub, the anticipation of the draw, the community ritual of checking numbers—but the more pressing argument for revival is economic.
“There is romance, romantic ‘yan. Pero more than that, ‘yan ‘yung nakakapagbigay ng livelihood sa mga matatanda, mga persons with disabilities, kasi ‘pag nag-pure digital, ‘di naman pwede ibenta ‘yun,” he said.
The PCSO chief said the physical sweepstakes ticket was one of the most accessible forms of informal livelihood available to senior citizens and persons with disabilities—requiring no capital, no inventory system, and no digital device—and its disappearance left that community without a viable income source.
