Last year, China saw aggregated sales for the country’s lotteries which are state-run drop by around 17.5% on a yearly basis to hit around $60.26 billion which is rather disappointing when compared to aggregated nationwide lottery sales for 2018.
According to one report released by GGRAsia, the country’s Ministry of Finance released official data which shows that the China Welfare Lottery actually recorded a record 14.8% drop in yearly lottery sales last year with official figures hitting around $27.31 billion. Also released by the China Welfare Lottery, the country’s Sports Lottery also suffered a more extreme 19.6% drop to reach around $32.96 billion.
All in all, these figures for 2019 are rather disappointing for the country’s state-run lotteries. The figures released by the government have also shown that the country’s Sichuan Province had been the only one of thirty-one jurisdictions to record an annual increase in the numbers related to the aggregated lottery products sales. As reported, Sichuan Province’s annual increase in lottery sales generated around $2.68 billion which represents an increase of around 6.1%.
Guangdong Province Remaining the Most Lucrative Lottery Market
The GGRAsia news outlet also cited other official figures released by the country’s Ministry of Finance according to which Guangdong Province retained its reputation as the most profitable lottery market in the country. This province retained this title despite suffering a drop of 19.2% in combined lottery sales which hit around $5.65 billion.
As revealed by the China Welfare Lottery’s recent financial reports regarding lottery sales for 2019, the most lucrative lottery market of Guangdong Province was closely followed by Jiangsu province which suffered a big 20.6% drop in lottery sales that eventually pushed its finishing tally figure to around $5.04 billion. This is not everything as more recent figures related to lottery sales in the country suggest that lottery sales across the nation had dropped by around 4.9% on a yearly basis to hit around $5.84 billion.
Just recently, the country’s Ministry of Finance detailed that the China Welfare Lottery and China Sports lottery sales back in December had crashed significantly when compared to the same period back in 2018. Moreover, takings regarding the China Sports Lottery had also dropped by around 1.1% throughout the thirty-one-day period to hit around $3.16 billion. At the same time, the China Welfare Lottery had experienced an even bigger drop of 9% to conclude the previous year with a humble tally of only $2.67 billion.
China Lottery Impacted by the Wuhan Virus Outbreak
Furthermore, state-run lottery operators and lottery sales in the country are also negatively affected by the outbreak of the Wuhan virus which was first recorded at the end of December in the city of Wuhan. This virus outbreak has so far claimed the lives of over 2,000 Chinese residents while it has affected over 70,000 individuals not only in China but across the world.
In order to fight the Wuhan virus and prevent its spread, the Chinese government halted all lottery sales for ten days starting from the 22nd of January. Later on, the government decided to expand this suspension for nine more days in addition to taking several other measures such as closing all Macau casinos for a period of fifteen days as well as installing body temperature measuring units at the most crowded places such as bus stations, malls, and other community areas.
