China lottery sales decline in January

Mainland Chinese sales of lottery tickets declined sharply in January this year, the Ministry of Finance reports, noting that a year-on-year decline of 10.7 percent was recorded.at RMB 29.2 billion ($4.23 billion).

The decline was attributed to the timing of the Chinese New Year holiday as Welfare lottery sales fell by 10.6 percent to RMB 19.2 billion and Sports lottery sales dropped by 10.8 percent to RMB12.5 billion.

Lotto sales, which make up the biggest sector of both lottery markets, dropped 8.9 percent in the Welfare Lottery and 15.3 percent for the Sports Lottery.

Scratch cards were down 24.7 percent and 21.3 percent respectively.

Welfare VLT sales fell 11.2 percent

The Ministry reported that FY-2016 sales rose by 7.3 percent y-o-y to RMB 394.6 billion.