Lottery sales shrink in February
Xinhua, March 25, 2016 Adjust font size:
China's lottery sales in February dropped 9.4 percent year on year to 22.45 billion yuan (3.44 billion U.S. dollars), official data showed on Friday.
The February figure was also less than the 32.64 billion yuan's worth of sales in January.
Welfare lottery sales shrank 5.2 percent to 12.34 billion yuan, while sports lottery sales tumbled 14.1 percent to 10.11 billion yuan, the Ministry of Finance said.
January and February's sales combined dropped 13.9 percent from the same period in 2015 to 55.1 billion yuan.
Despite the overall downward trend, 16 provincial-level regions saw their lottery sales rise in February, with Jiangsu, Hubei, Hebei, Henan and Liaoning climbing the most.
The sales revenues are used to cover administrative fees as well as the jackpot, and the rest to improve social welfare and sports facilities. Endi