Shanghai Residents Rush to Buy Welfare Lottery Tickets

Residents in China's largest industrial and commercial city of Shanghai have become conditioned to buying welfare lottery tickets on their way home -- from January to October of this year a record 1.04 billion yuan (1.25 million US dlrs) worth of welfare lottery ticket were sold.

Shanghai residents now buy one-sixth of the country's welfare lottery tickets, the latest statistics show.

So far this year 704 Shanghai residents have been lucky enough to win a prize, among which 19 people have won the top prize (5 million yuan or 600,000 US dlrs each) and 70 have won the first class prize (bellow 5 million yuan each).

According to the lottery administration, Shanghai has collected 150 million yuan (US$18 million) of welfare funds through issuing welfare lottery tickets, 40 percent of which went to a social welfare facilities fund, 30 percent to welfare development fund and the remaining 30 percent to a public benefit fund.






People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/