By Mark Baber
June 16 – China’s blooming sports lottery, which debuted in 2009, is expecting a big boost from the World Cup with revenues estimated to increase by US$13.5 billion-$16.2 billion over the coming month.
Figures announced by the National Sports Lottery Management Center showed that the first day of World Cup betting had brought in over RMB 150 million ($24.1 million) in sales, nearly five times as much as the first day of the 2010 World Cup. During the 2010 World Cup sales had doubled and they also went up 150% during Euro 2012.
According to Su Guojing, founder of China Sports Lottery, the World Cup should boost overall sales of lottery tickets by 25% to 30%.
Total sales from the sports lottery in 2013 reached US$494 billion, with US$67 billion of bets placed over the internet (of which $14 billion came from bets placed by mobile device).
China’s Ministry of Finance, which oversees the legal lottery business, also reported on Friday that total lottery sales rose 12.6% in May to RMB 30.8b ($5 billion). Welfare lottery sales were up 16.2% to RMB 17.65 billion while sports lottery sales rose 8.2% to RMB 13.15 billion. Through the first five months of 2014, total sales are up 13.9% to RMB 142.4 billion.
Online lottery sales from internet platforms such as Sina, Taobao, NetEase and Jingdong rose nearly 63% last year to RMB 42 billion and expectations are that online sales will top RMB 60 billion when 2014’s final figures are in.
Around 7-8% of Chinese adults currently play the lottery which maintains a payout ratio of 65%, with 13% going towards overheads and 22% returning to the public via the Lottery’s charitable efforts.
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