Total sales of official lottery products in mainland China rose 25.1% year-on-year to about 47.96 billion yuan ($7.16 billion) in January, according to the latest data released by China’s finance ministry, driven by a “huge increase” in sports lottery sales during the month.

About 56% of lottery sales in China in January came from sports lottery, amounting to nearly 26.74 billion yuan. That’s a 40.8% increase from the same month a year earlier, an official statement said, which was affected by the quadrennial football tournament AFC Asian Cup.

Welfare lottery sales in January amounted to about 21.22 billion yuan, up 9.7% from the same period last year.

Most of the 31 provinces and cities in mainland China that have been authorized to sell lottery tickets have reported increased lottery sales, with the exception of Hunan, Guangxi, Hainan and Tibet. Those four each fell more than 10% in the reporting month compared to the same month a year earlier.

Sichuan saw the biggest increase in official lottery product sales in January, according to data from the Labor Ministry. Total lottery product sales in Sichuan rose 75.1% year-on-year to 2.14 billion yuan in the first month of 2019.

Guangdong remained the largest single provincial market selling lottery products in mainland China in January, during which total lottery sales rose 16.4% year-on-year to 4.43 billion yuan. Guangdong followed, with Jiangsu seeing total lottery sales for the month of 4.04 billion yuan, up 27.7% year-on-year.

BY: 바카라사이트