{"id":210619,"date":"2015-09-17T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-09-16T20:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=210619"},"modified":"2015-09-17T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T20:00:18","slug":"scratchies-ceo-money-goes-to-nmsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/scratchies-ceo-money-goes-to-nmsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Scratchies CEO: Money goes to NMSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chief executive officer of Pacific Lotteries Pty Ltd. assured that the money collected from the popular Scratch Card Lottery goes directly to the Northern Marianas Sports Association\u2019s funds that aims to help Commonwealth athletes in off-island sports events.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The scratch card lottery system has been so far successful in raising funds that would help the Northern Marianas Sports Association. From left, NMSA executive director Tony Rogolifoi, president Michael White, and secretary Rose Igitol at the launching of the Instant Scratchies earlier this year. (Jon Perez)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNMSA receives a percentage from ticket sales and the principal use of these funds earned will be used for helping CNMI athletes participate in off-island sports competitions,\u201d said Pacific Lotteries CEO Stephen Gibson in an email to Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the representation of the CNMI in international sports events such as the recent South Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea, which Team CNMI represented us proudly,\u201d added Gibson. \u201cWe look forward to your continuing support of NMSA and our sports community.\u201d<\/p>\n

He, however, did not answer how much money was already transmitted to NMSA. Saipan Tribune tried to get NMSA president Michael A. White\u2019s opinion but he has not yet responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe receive our proceeds on a regular basis, which is very satisfactory and the community has responded enthusiastically to our fundraising appeal to help support the sports community,\u201d said Gibson.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the money that NMSA received from the sales of the tickets would also be used for the renovation of Saipan\u2019s sports facilities that got damaged or where destroyed by Typhoon Soudelor last month, Gibson said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is currently making an assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegarding our sports facilities, Typhoon Soudelor has caused extensive damage in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to these facilities. FEMA is currently assessing the exact cost of the damage and we are awaiting their response,\u201d added Gibson.<\/p>\n

He said that 25 individuals had already won the $1,000 Instant Scratchies jackpot prize. \u201cAnd there are plenty more still to be scratched and won. We have more exciting news coming soon and will inform you of such as soon as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Scratch Card Lottery was launched early this year, where a certain percentage of the sales will fund NMSA\u2019s various sports programs in the CNMI, defray costs of its operations, and assist the national athletes\u2019 off-island trips.<\/p>\n

Revenues collected from bingo, casino, lottery, sweepstakes, and other games of chance are being practiced by countries such as Australia, Guam, and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

A portion of the funds spent in the Philippines\u2019 sports development programs come from the income generated from the money collected from the casinos that the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. operates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chief executive officer of Pacific Lotteries Pty Ltd. assured that the money collected from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":210971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,1162,38,6333],"class_list":["post-210619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-nmsa","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}