MANILA, Philippines - The country’s two online lottery terminal operators said Wednesday ticket sales went up by nearly 16% in 2009 to a little over P23 billion, as more Filipinos tried their luck in the game of chance hoping to become instant millionaires.

In a disclosure, Pacific Online Systems Corp. said lotto sales of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) in the Visayas and Mindanao increased by 18.5% to P7.69 billion last year from P6.49 billion in 2008 as a result of the “aggressive” opening of terminals. At the end of 2009, the Visayas and Mindanao had 1,748 betting terminals, up from 1,500 in the previous year.

Meanwhile, an executive of Prime Gaming Philippines, Inc., whose unit Prime Gaming Management Corp. operates Luzon lottery terminals, said sales in Luzon increased by 14.26% or P1.96 billion. This corresponded to P15.7 billion in sales for 2009.

Prime Gaming has more than 2,000 lotto terminals in Luzon, and claims a market share of nearly three-quarters.

Prime Gaming and Pacific Online lease lottery equipment to the state-run PCSO under separate lease agreements, and get a tenth of sales.

Willy N. Ocier, Pacific Online chairman and president, said in the disclosure: “The significant jackpots last year further spurred the interest of the betting public thus increasing the sales of PCSO.”

Aside from lotto, sales of the online “Keno” lottery game also increased by 2.7 times to P88.67 million in 2009, from P32.3 million in 2008, Pacific Online said.

Pacific Online holds the equipment lease agreement for the nationwide Keno online roulette game through subsidiary Total Gaming Technologies. The firm hiked betting terminals to 100 last year from just 34 terminals in 2008. Pacific Online said there would be an “increase in roll-out” this year to expand Keno’s reach.

Pacific Online said higher lotto sales would further improve the company’s topline. From January to September, profits grew by 85% to P224 million.

For the 6-month period ending October 2009, Prime Gaming reported P326 million in profits, up from P246 million in the same period in 2008.

The lotto business is expected to heat up this year with the state-run PCSO’s plan to phase out its Power Lotto and replace it with a game similar to three other existing lotto games.

Power Lotto, which has failed to pick up since introduction last year unlike the popular six-digit games, will be replaced by a new six-digit game, lotto 6/55.

Pacific Online had said the new game would improve its sales by as much as 25% this year.

At P50 per bet, Power Lotto is meant for the A and B market. The betting price is 400% higher compared with the regular and Mega Lotto six-digit bets and 150% more than the P20 bet price of Super Lotto 6/49.

Unlike Power Lotto where a bettor needs to pick the right five numbers from 1 to 55 and a sixth number from 1 to 10, patrons will just have to choose six numbers from 1 to 55 in lotto 6/55.

The 6/55 lotto game will likely be sold at P20 per bet, with Power Lotto’s jackpot prize as the initial winning pot. Since Power Lotto was launched in June 2008, its jackpot has yet to be won.

The winning pot for Power Lotto stood at P88 million on Wednesday. Super Lotto 6/49 had P17 million while Mega Lotto 6/45 had P5 million. Lotto 6/42 had a jackpot of P6.5 million as of Wednesday.