Gov’t rakes in over MOP13 million from ‘lucky number’ licences

The Transport Bureau has earned over MOP13 million (US$1.6 million) from 890 bids competing for over 200 ‘special car licence plates’, the Bureau’s term for its portfolio of lucky number plates, Business Daily has learnt.
The Bureau announced its first open bid result of the year for 272 special car licence numbers, which are all prefixed by MT-.
The licence plates, which are categorised into four groups, range from a bottom bid price of MOP20,000 to MOP100,000.
The highest bid – at MOP699,999 – was made for licence plate MT28-28; stamp duty pushed the total price up to MOP703,000.
Altogether, six bids were cast for this particular plate; in Cantonese, the figure ‘8’ is often associated with the pun of ‘earning a fortune’, while ‘28’ is associated with ‘easily earning a fortune’.
The MT28-28 plate belonged to the second most expensive starting price category ‘B’. In the most expensive category ‘A’, the MT22-22 plate was sold for MOP688,000.
The open bids for the ‘special car licences’ is believed to be especially popular amongst junkets and wealthy individuals who have acquired a fortune from the gaming sector.
The Transport Bureau has hosted the open bid auction for special car licences twice, and sometimes thrice, a year since its establishment in 2008, when it only amassed an income of MOP4.1 million from licence plate sales that year.