Olympic Scratch Cards

Paul Pennay | Jun 19, 2008 1:00 pm | Add a comment | 1856 reads

by Paul Pennay

Ever wonder where Beijing's getting all the money to build such architectural marvels as the Bird's Nest (estimated at costing around RMB 3.5 billion) and the Water Cube (about RMB 1 billion)? Well, yesterday's release of Olympic scratch cards might offer a clue as to where at least a portion of the money is coming from; the pockets of the country's lottery-crazy public.

After a trial introduction across four cities in late March, Olympic scratch cards (some American readers might know them as scratchers, Aussies as scratchies) were released across the country yesterday. In Beijing you can now purchase two of the seven different kinds of Dinggugua (顶呱刮), the Bravely Competing for First Place (勇争第一 Yongzheng Diyi) and the Go China! (加油！中国队 Jiayou! Zhongguodui), both of them sell for 5 kuai a piece and prizes range from a minimum of 5 kuai to a top prize of RMB 100,000.

Tickets are currently only available at the various Sports Lottery vendors that spot the city – look for groups of rather unhappy and serious men gathered around a 体彩 (ticai) sign – but organizers hope to widen the distribution points to supermarkets, convenience stores, post offices and maybe even the subway. However, when I tried to buy a couple of the new tickets at my local ticai dealer, the lady told me that they haven't made it to her yet and that maybe they'll be available tomorrow or the next day. So reports in today's papers about shortages might have more to do with distribution problems than the popularity of the new lottery. As of yesterday there have been no reports of anyone striking the jackpot.

The other five types of scratch cards will be released gradually over the next few months and will sell for either 3, 5 or 10 kuai. If you do happen to scratch a winner, you can collect prizes of and up to the value of RMB 3,000 from the place where you purchased the ticket. If you're lucky enough to hit the jackpot (RMB 250,000), you'll have to go in person to the Beijing Sports Lottery center.

This isn't the first time that China has turned to a lottery system to help them raise funds for a sporting event, the current Sports Lottery, officially introduced in 1994, has its origins in a lottery that was introduced in 1989 to raise funds for the 11th Asian Games. By 2003, Beijingers alone were squandering 100 million a month on the Sports Lottery and in 2007 annual sales across the country had climbed to RMB 38 billion. According to China Daily, the money raised by the lottery is used to fund a nationwide physical fitness program, to help China's western and less developed regions develop sports facilities and to supplement the budget of major sports tournaments.

The Sports Lottery however, is something of a little brother to China's Welfare Lottery, the behemoth that dominates China's legal lottery industry. Of the RMB 100 billion spent on lottery tickets last year, RMB 62 billion was spent on Social Welfare Lottery tickets. A far cry from the RMB 17 million wagered in 1987, the year when legalized gambling was reintroduced into China, and also well beyond the RMB 380 million spent in 1989. According to the People's Daily, sales from the Welfare Lottery tickets had already totaled RMB 15.685 billion in the first 3 months of this year, which they interpret as an increase of 16.6% over the same period last year, but we suspect their math is a little off. The report goes on to say that half of the governments 35% take will go into supplementing the social security fund; supporting the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games; supporting policies that benefit the disabled; providing urban and rural medical assistance; and constructing recreational facilities for young people. The remaining 50% goes toward local welfare and assistance. The Ministry of Civil Affairs has admitted that much of the recent 35% increase in welfare expenditure has been funded by record lottery revenues.

Both lotteries maintain a tradition of contributing to various good causes with the Sports Lottery contributing funds to the relief effort associated with the Spring Festival snowstorms earlier this year and the Welfare Lottery making a huge donation towards the Sichuan Earthquake relief effort.

Along with climbing sales figures (it's been averaging about 20% annually of the past couple of years), jackpots are also going up. In 2002, a resident of Jiangmen set records when they won RMB 45 million, this was followed by a RMB 50 million pay out in 2006, last month a Chongqing resident took home RMB 82.34 million and in November last year a Gansu gambler took home a record RMB 102.7 million.

But the allure of big wins has also given rise to attempts to beat the system, last year a Heilongjiang lottery ticket seller was jailed for life for a ticketing scam and a group of bank workers became the focus of a lot of media attention when they too were sentenced to death for stealing RMB 51 million from the vault they were supposed to be watching and losing most of their take on what they thought was a fool-proof plan to beat the lottery.

Next month will mark 21 years since a state lottery was introduced in the PRC, if you'd like to read more about it you can take a look at a potted history of the Chinese lottery here. If Wikipedia can be believed, it might be a case of the lottery returning home as the online encyclopedia claims that the

first signs of a lottery trace back the Han Dynasty between 205 and 187 B.C., where ancient Keno slips were discovered. The lottery has helped finance major governmental projects like the Great Wall of China. From the Chinese "The Book of Songs" (second millennium B.C.) comes a reference to a game of chance as "the drawing of wood", which in context appears to describe the drawing of lots.

Links and Sources

Chinese Sports Lottery Official Site

Chinese Sports Lottery Official Site: Instant Lottery

Beijing Welfare Lottery

Sina: 奥运即开彩票今日上市以比赛项目为对象共有七种

Sohu: 奥运即开彩票在京上市首日部分网点卖“断货”

Sohu: image

China Daily: Lottery sales exceeds 100b yuan in 2007

People's Daily: China Welfare Lottery sales shoot up nearly 30%

People's Daily: China Welfare Lottery sales up 16.6% year-on-year

Xinhua: China welfare lottery management centers donate to help snow victims

China.org.cn: Two Decades of China's Lottery