Come Wednesday night, on live TV and internet streaming, 17,600 people and families will be winners of the inaugural monthly Beijing licence plate lottery! The excitement and anticipation of the lottery has not been seen since 2001, when Beijing waited for Jacques Rogge to announce the winner of the 2008 Olympic bid.

According to Xinhua, a staggering 210,000 people applied for the January lottery, far exceeding the expectations of the Beijing municipal government (seriously, how could they not have expected this!?), meaning that over 90 percent of the applicants are going to be carless for at least another month. All non-winners will have their names automatically included in the February lottery.

The lottery is the result of the sudden, severe crackdown on the car ownership in Beijing announced in the dying days of 2010. There are now 4.7 million cars on the capital's clogged roads, an increase from 4 million at the end of 2009. Without restrictions, at the current rate of growth Beijing would have over 6 million cars on the roads by the end of this year. The new restrictions of ‘just’ 240,000 new licence plates will limit the number of cars to closer to 5 million. Not that this will ease the traffic jams, but in theory it will maintain the status quo until infrastructure catches up.

Unsurprisingly, the sudden announcement of planned restrictions in December last year provoked a massive spike in car purchases before the new rules kicked in, leading to 30,000 sales in one week. The botched handling of issue led to the resignation of Beijing's vice mayor for traffic management, Huang Wei, who was reassigned to far west China.

Just how the lottery will be staged is a closely guarded secret. Will it be a super serious event, with an impeccably suited man pulling numbered ball’s out of a barrel? Or will there be a studio audience full of hopeful applicants preparing to wildly cheer or sigh if they are winners or losers? Will there be roving reporters at scores of homes in Beijing, filming families gathering anxiously around the TV? Or will the lottery be one of those over-tacky events, ala “Deal or No Deal,” with the host regularly cutting to commercials to leave applicants hanging in suspense? Personally I hope for the latter approach, especially if they have model’s holding suitcases full of licence plates. Add some crazy Japanese-style sound effects, and we're set for an entertainment extravaganza.

The specifics of the lottery, including the time it will be broadcast, are set to be made public tomorrow (Tuesday, Jan 25).