China from Communism to Lottery Millionaires - 07-28-08

July 28 - While still a country shrouded in taboos and mystery, there is no doubt that communist China is slowly drawing from the ways of the West, from an increasing propensity towards obesity, wanting to host the Olympic Games and offering its citizens lucrative lottery games.

Despite being a communist state, China has its own government-owned and run lottery called the China Social Welfare Lottery and, with such an enormous population, there are many millions of lottery fans throughout China, that can afford a hefty 40 yuan (US$5.86) China Social Welfare Lottery ticket.

Just last year in November, one lucky Chinese lottery fan from Jiayuguan city in Gansu province won 41.7 million yuan (US$6.1 million) in the China Social Welfare Lottery. Chinese journalists and reporters swarmed to the town to find out the identity of the new lucky lottery millionaire.

Because, for security reasons, the China Social Welfare Lottery did not reveal the winner's name, the reporters did the next best thing and swarmed to the shop, owned by Li Zhenjie, who sold the winning 41.7 million yuan lottery ticket to the winner, for clues as to who he or she might be.

While she told the journalists that she did not know who the winner was, she did explain that she received 3,000 yuan from the local bureau of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, that oversees the China Social Welfare Lottery, as a result of her being a 'hero for promoting lottery tickets to her customers.'

Interestingly, in the 1880s China boasted some form of lottery but the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and adoption of communism soon put paid to that, as gambling in any form was heavily frowned upon.

It was only after China began to embrace the reforms that the government started rethinking its anti-lottery policies, and on July 26th 1987, Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei province, issued the first China Social Welfare Lottery tickets, the first lotto tickets in 38 years.