April Sees 24.4% Surge in Chinese Lottery Sales

The Welfare Lottery generated CNY11.16bn in total revenue, experiencing a 6.2% year-on-year decline. On the other hand, the Sports Lottery achieved a total revenue of CNY17.93bn, marking a noteworthy increase of 56.3%. Instant gaming contributed CNY2.40bn to the Welfare Lottery’s revenue and CNY2.43bn to the Sports Lottery’s revenue, demonstrating respective year-on-year growth rates of 111.0% and 103.1%. Keno games accounted for CNY1.5bn of the Welfare Lottery’s revenue, representing 14.2% of its total revenue. Sports wagering revenue generated by the Sports Lottery soared by 2119.1%, reaching CNY9.5bn compared to CNY432m in the previous year. The Welfare Lottery did not record any sales from video lottery, whereas the Sports Lottery observed a rise of 166.6% from CNY30,000 in April 2020 to CNY80,000. Lottery sales experienced a general decrease in April 2021. Sales in Shanxi dropped by 19.6% and sales in Xinjiang fell by 26.5% compared to the previous year. In addition, China strengthened its crackdown on illegal cross-border gambling in April. Police operations conducted since 2020 resulted in the detection of 17,000 cross-border gambling incidents and the apprehension of more than 110,000 suspects, as reported by the Ministry of Public Security.