Becoming wealthy is a dream for many people around the world, including a student in Bandung named Carles. His desire to get rich quickly made him willing to set aside money to buy Social Donation Prize Coupons (TSSB), which cost around Rp200 to Rp600. Despite being a student from Jakarta, he chose to gamble on these coupons because of his big dream of becoming wealthy. Even though the chances of losing were far greater than winning.
He hoped that the coupon number he bought would match the government lottery results. Every period, the government shuffles the lottery and awards millions of rupiah to the winners. With such slim odds, anyone who wins can be considered extraordinarily lucky. Unexpectedly, Carles was the lucky winner. On Thursday, December 5, 1985, as reported by Berita Yudha (December 11, 1985), the government announced the lottery results via radio broadcast.
The selected coupon number was 2758846, the exact one Carles had. With this victory, he was entitled to receive a prize of millions of rupiah, an amount sufficient to buy rice, fuel, gold, or even pay for his college tuition until graduation. Instantly, Carles became a new wealthy individual with abundant money. His name immediately went viral and became the focus of the media.
Carles’ story cannot be viewed through today’s lens when gambling is considered illegal. What Carles experienced was commonplace during the era of President Soeharto, who openly legalized gambling through various policy names. Throughout the 1980s, the government created many policies for public donation lotteries. These policies had the same mechanism. The government printed lottery coupons through the Ministry of Social Affairs to be purchased by the public at various prices. The money from the public was used for development capital.
In return, the public would receive millions to billions of rupiah from lottery coupon guesses. Of course, the chances of winning were extremely low. If the purchased coupon matched the announcement, the buyer would receive a prize. Out of millions of participants, only 1-2 people would win. So, someone who won this lottery used up their lifetime of luck.
TSSB, which Carles won, was based on Law No.2 Year 1954 concerning Lottery. Tempo (November 20, 1993) noted that the government had printed 4 million sheets during the 9-year TSSB period, drawn every two weeks. Everything was handed over to the Social Welfare Devotion Fund Foundation (YDBKS), which was then used for social assistance. Throughout the TSSB process, the government received fresh funds of Rp1 trillion. The nominal sum of money returned to the public was only hundreds of millions through the lottery coupon mechanism. Even though the process was no different from gambling, the government denied engaging in such illicit activities.
