This is the second time Kenya is exploring this route after the Higher Education Loans Board (Helb) floated the idea in 2016.
In its plan, the tertiary education financier anticipated profits from the lottery, to be run in the form of raffles could be used to finance the agency’s loan book, which is currently faces a massive funding gap.
Under the proposed plan, parents could save as low as Sh1,000 monthly towards meeting their children’s future cost of a college education.
The Kenya Kwanza government is exploring several ways to cut down public debt which currently sits at Sh9.1 trillion. They include public-private partnerships, lotteries and aggressive tax collection measures.
To solidify this, the government has already set up a team to guide the establishment of the National Lottery.
"His Excellency William Samoei Ruto has appointed a Presidential Taskforce on the establishment of a National Lottery to harness the collective synergies among the public in being part of the solution through participating in a national lottery,'' a statement issued last week from the presidency read.
The task force is structured in two tiers: the Steering Committee and the Technical Committee to be led by steel and cement tycoon Narendra Raval and Linda Musumba respectively.
The country has been attempting for some years now to establish a state run lottery, with the latest one being the botched plan to establish the National Lottery through the proposed 2019, Gaming Bill.
It was expected to replace the Betting, Lotteries, and Gaming Act which could have paved way for the abolishment of the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB).
Treasury had anticipated collecting Sh15 billion from the industry in 2023 compared to the financial year that ended in June 2022 where it grossed Sh3.294 billion.
"With sound controls, the National Lottery can comfortably cater for the country's sports budget and chip in for Sh15.8 billion allocated to Helb every year,'' Cabinet Secretary National Treasury Njuguna Ndung'u told said last week.
In the current financial year, the exchequer raised the budget for the Sports, Arts and Social Development Fund to Sh15.8 billion. This was an upward revision of 800 million, from the previous year.
A similar amount was allocated to Helb. The education financier has hitherto relied on the Treasury and recoveries from past beneficiaries to disburse new loans but the rising number of university and technical college students has outstripped available revenues.
There are several lotteries ongoing in the country, including Kenya Charity Sweepstake and Win Lotto.
Several countries across the globe use lotteries to raise funds to special projects.
A National Lottery runs as a state-franchises raising money for the arts, sports and charities by selling numbered tickets and giving prizes to holders of numbers drawn at random.
In countries such as the US, National Lotteries are central to revenue mobilisation by states who run popular lotteries such as Mega Millions and Powerball.
In the United Kingdom, the Gambling Commission runs the National Lottery which was established in 1994.
Last week, a person in Maine, USA won the massive $1.35 billion (Sh169 billion)Mega Millions jackpot —the fourth biggest of all time.
