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 | Thursday, April 27, 2000, updated at 16:12(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
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Lottery Market Booms in ChinaJust like the stock market had a boom several year ago, lotteries have gained more and more popularity with the Chinese people. It seems that everyone yields to the temptation of the low input and high return game.The latest issue of the Beijing Review, an English weekly publication, quoted an official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying that many reasons could explain the growing trend of lotteries in China, and among them people's ideas of doing something for social welfare projects and chancing one's luck are what counts. The first welfare lottery ticket in China was sold in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province in north China, on July 27, 1987. Lotteries have gradually become a fun-making charity industry. When Shanghai began to sell the lottery ticket entitled Stylish Shanghai in 1998, the number of lottery buyers outstripped its stock holders, encouraged by the first prize standing at as much as 1 million yuan. Its 2,000 sales centers sold 300 million yuan of lottery tickets for the year. According to the Shanghai Welfare Lottery Ticket Distribution Center, winning the lottery would be a pleasant surprise to buyers, and loss can be as a service to society. In January 1999, the issuance of disaster-relief lottery tickets swept across Beijing, with 70 million yuan worth of tickets sold in one week. Prizes of lotteries range from objects, such as a sedan car and a color TV, to cash. In addition to charity lottery, sports lottery release has witnessed a growing trend over recent years. Beijing began to issue sports lottery tickets in 1990. The Dongcheng District alone issued 2.4 million yuan worth of tickets last year. Chen Bojun, Deputy Director of the Beijing Dongcheng District Sports Commission, said that the funds raised were devoted to the building of sports facilities and constructions of stadiums. The profits of the lottery industry are huge, observed industry insiders. They have noticed that some departments issued lottery tickets without the approval of the State Council. Experts are calling for the introduction of a law on lotteries and they proposed to make lottery tickets a State or Government monopoly, as many other countries with the successful lottery industry do, to avoid unfair competition and issuance.
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