October’s total sales for mainland China’s official lottery system were CNY27.55 billion (US$3.92 billion), down 34.8 percent year-on-year according to official data from the Ministry of Finance. It was the ninth consecutive month of year-on-year decline in sales of lottery tickets.
Welfare lottery ticket sales dropped 33.0 percent to CNY12.68 billion. The value of sports lottery ticket business shrank by 36.2 percent, to CNY14.87 billion, compared to a year earlier.
The Ministry stated the decrease in aggregate lottery sales related to changes in rules regulating such business – implemented nationally earlier this year – as well as an initiative that saw the closure of the lottery market during this year’s autumn Golden Week holiday. That period encompasses China’s National Day on October 1.
In the first ten months of 2019, total lottery sales nationally amounted to CNY343.36 billion, a drop of 19.3 percent year-on-year. Welfare lottery ticket sales were down 15.4 percent to CNY155.78 billion. Sports lottery ticket sales tallied CNY187.58 billion, a decrease of 22.3 percent compared to the same period in 2018.
Among the 31 provinces and municipalities of mainland China authorised to sell lottery tickets, only Tibet recorded a year-on-year increase in October. According to the ministry’s data, only Sichuan province in southwest China reported a year-on-year rise in sales in the first ten months of 2019, aggregating to CNY15.40 billion, up by 6.26 percent.
Guangdong remained mainland China’s biggest single-province market for official lottery products in the first 10 months of 2019, despite a 19.8-percent year-over-year decline in sales. Its tally for the period was CNY32.15 billion.
