China’s two state-sanctioned lotteries posted a 15.1 percent increase in sales in September to 36.93 billion yuan, the equivalent in U.S. dollars of more than .5 billion.
The results, released by the Ministry of Finance, show Sports Lottery ticket sales were up 24.4 percent and Welfare Lottery sales increased 6.5 percent compared to September 2016.
Sales were up in all but three of the 31 cities authorized to sell tickets, with some of the largest increases occurring in Fujian province, where sales nearly doubled from last year, and Guangdong, where sales jumped 21.6 percent.
Guangdong, the populous mainland province bordering Macau and Hong Kong, has paced both lotteries through the first nine months of 2017, up 5.6 percent over January-September 2016. Jiangsu is second and Shandong third.
Nationwide, the lotteries are ahead of last year’s sales by a combined 7.3 percent to 310.78 billion yuan (US$46.75 billion).
