{"id":82026,"date":"2018-06-27T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=82026"},"modified":"2018-06-27T12:21:59","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:21:59","slug":"world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup Betting Fever Sends China Sports Lottery Revenues Soaring"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World Cup is not only the world\u2019s largest sporting event, it is also\u00a0one of the most popular events for fans of sports betting<\/a> as well. And nowhere is that more evident than in China, where people are spending more money than ever on sports lotteries in the country.<\/p>\n

\"World
Chinese fans cheer on their national team during a World Cup qualifying match against Iran in Tehran. (Image: EPA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For many governments, the extra revenue coming in during the World Cup would be a cause for celebration. But Chinese officials are less excited, as the government has long tried to limit the amount of gambling<\/a> that takes place in the country.<\/p>\n

World Cup Drives Record Interest in Chinese Lottery<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The sports lottery offers a number of limited betting options for soccer fans. The largest jackpots are tied to a game known as Winning Colors, in which players are asked to predict the outcome of 14 different matches.<\/p>\n

All of the money that is bet is pooled together to create a prize pool, of which 70 percent is split among those who correctly predicted all 14 outcomes, while 30 percent is split as a second-place prize among those who hit 13 out of 14.<\/p>\n

According to figures from the China Sports Lottery website, interest in this and other games has reached a fever pitch during the World Cup. During the first two weeks of the tournament, the lottery has done 19.1 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) in sales, about 20 percent of the entire take from the 2017 calendar year.<\/p>\n

Chinese lottery expert Li Gang told The Australian Financial Review <\/em>that the World Cup as a whole might bring in 50 billion yuan ($7.6 billion) in sales, nearly four times the 12.9 billion yuan ($1.95 billion) collected four years ago.<\/p>\n

According to Li, the rise of social media over the past four years has been a major factor, as players brag to their followers about winning tickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people\u2026want to show off how they picked the right result by showing off amongst their WeChat friends,\u201d Li told AFR<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gambling Frenzy, Illegal Lotteries Concern Officials<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But those same social media channels may be leading Chinese authorities to worry about whether sports betting has become bigger than they intended. The AFR report noted that there have been videos on Weibo \u2013 a Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter \u2013 of soccer bettors supposedly smashing televisions after losing bets.<\/p>\n

Then there is the issue of online sports lotteries. Chinese authorities have considered these to be illegal since at least 2015, with no lottery institutions having a license to offer online sales.<\/p>\n

But several groups were reportedly taking lottery bets through apps in the early days of the World Cup, with the Global Times <\/em>reporting that at one point, four of the top 10 free apps in the Chinese version of Apple\u2019s App Store were related to sports lotteries. Since then, some have shut down following media reports that quoted the China Welfare Lottery Center as warning about the illegal nature of the operations.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019ve necessarily disappeared, however, with some underground lottery operators moving to social media to sell tickets. Such unauthorized games carry a high risk of fraud and are sometimes outright scams, but many players still prefer them to the authorized sports lottery, which many bettors find boring.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s sports lottery is not well-structured or entertaining enough,\u201d He Wenyi, executive director of Peking University\u2019s China Institute for Sports Value, told the Global Times<\/em>. \u201cIt has low odds and few varieties.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Cup is not only the world\u2019s largest sporting event, it is also\u00a0one of the most popular events for fans of sports betting as well. And nowhere is that more evident than in China, where people are spending more money than ever on sports lotteries in the country. For many governments, the extra revenue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":82028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1074],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWorld Cup Betting Fever Sends China Sports Lottery Revenues Soaring<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The World Cup has created a frenzy of interest in the China Sports Lottery, though the Chinese government has concerns over just how big the gambling industry is getting in the country.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"World Cup Betting Fever Sends China Sports Lottery Revenues Soaring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The World Cup has created a frenzy of interest in the China Sports Lottery, though the Chinese government has concerns over just how big the gambling industry is getting in the country.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-27T19:00:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-06-27T19:21:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/China-Fans.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1320\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"770\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/\",\"name\":\"World Cup Betting Fever Sends China Sports Lottery Revenues Soaring\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/China-Fans.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-27T19:00:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-27T19:21:59+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/8c48bf89dc86da77b4d856c7b3b78d77\"},\"description\":\"The World Cup has created a frenzy of interest in the China Sports Lottery, though the Chinese government has concerns over just how big the gambling industry is getting in the country.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/world-cup-betting-fever-sends-china-sports-lottery-revenues-soaring\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/China-Fans.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/China-Fans.jpg\",\"width\":1320,\"height\":770,\"caption\":\"Chinese fans cheer on their national team during a World Cup qualifying match against Iran in Tehran. 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