Mizuho Bank, one of the largest financial establishments in Japan, has announced that as of this week it will be suspending face-to-face lottery ticket sales at all its branches across the nation due to the ongoing global COVID-19 health crisis.
Set to be effective as of today, the nationwide suspension follows on from the Mizuho Financial Group halting lottery ticket sales at branches based in Tokyo and six other constituencies following a state of emergency being declared by the Japanese government in those regions on April 7.
Despite those measures having been put in place, the continued rapid expansion of the coronavirus across the globe, as well as the country, saw the April 7 state of emergency expanded to cover the whole of Japan on April 16, thus resulting in the nationwide suspension of sales.
Regarding the status of the Japanese lottery in general, Mizuho Bank is commissioned to carry out lottery-related operations by a group managing lotteries in the country and as a result lottery tickets will still be made available for online purchasing.
Mizuho, which is the third largest financial group in the country, will continue to remain open across all of Japan between the hours of 9am and 3pm for lottery winners to collect any potential prize money during the suspension period.