Wang at the China Center for Lottery Studies insisted this sort of funding would massively increase if the lottery was made more exciting for players.

"If it doesn't come up with interesting games then people will graduate to the illegal lottery and other forms of gambling," she said.

"There needs to be more products provided to the market. There always needs to be more advertising and promoting of the lottery."

"The key change, however, needs to be in the distribution network. It needs to be enhanced and made better and become much more market-orientated."

For Chinese lottery players, however, winning is everything. Tang, the financial manager from Shenzhen, said she still hopes to win the jackpot one day.

"I have been buying welfare tickets for a year and got several 10 yuan prizes, although a colleague of mine won a big prize a couple of weeks ago. I'll keep buying until some day I win the jackpot," she said.

(China Daily April 27, 2009)