Mainland China’s total sales from official lottery products in January rose by 25.1 percent year-on-year to approximately CNY47.96 billion (US$7.16 billion), partly spurred by a “huge increase” in sports lottery sales during the month, according to the latest data released by China’s Ministry of Finance.
About 56 percent of China’s January lottery products sales were from sports lottery, which stood at nearly CNY26.74 billion. This represented a year-on-year increase of 40.8 percent, a rise that the official statement described as having been influenced by the quadrennial football tournament AFC Asian Cup that was held during that month.
Sales of welfare lottery tickets in January reached approximately CNY21.22 billion, 9.7 percent higher than the same period last year.
Most of the 31 provinces and cities of mainland China authorised to sell lottery tickets reported increases in sales of lottery tickets, with the exception of Hunan, Guangxi, Hainan and Tibet. These four places have respectively seen a year-on-year decline of more than 10 percent in the reporting month.
The biggest increase in the January sale of official lottery products was seen in Sichuan province, according to the ministry’s data. Total sales of lottery products in Sichuan stood at CNY2.14 billion in the first month of 2019, up 75.1 percent from the prior-year period.
Guangdong remained mainland China’s biggest single-province market for lottery products in January, with total lottery ticket sales reaching CNY4.43 billion in the period, up 16.4 percent from a year earlier. Guangdong was followed by Jiangsu province, where total lottery ticket sales in the month were CNY4.04 billion, an increase of 27.7 percent in year-on-year terms.
