July reportedly saw aggregated ticket sales in China for the nation’s pair of state-sponsored lottery games deteriorate by some 40.1% year-on-year to stand at slightly above ¥32.73 billion ($4.56 billion).

According to a report from GGRAsia citing official data from the giant country’s Ministry of Finance, the July result represented the sixth consecutive month of year-on-year declines with officials attributing all of these drops to the unusually high 2018 comparables that had been created by interest in last summer’s FIFA World Cup.

Pair’s plunge:

The government figures reportedly also showed that the China Welfare Lottery had managed to chalk up July revenues of about ¥15.05 billion ($2.09 billion), which equated to a decrease of 21.3% year-on-year, while its compatriot China Sports Lottery had experienced an even steeper 50.2% comparative plunge to approximately ¥17.69 billion ($2.46 billion).

Seven-month assessment:

GGRAsia moreover reported that the official Ministry of Finance figures showed that China had recorded aggregated lottery tickets sales for the first seven months of 2019 of around ¥245.33 billion ($34.17 billion), which was 18.2% lower than for the same period last year. This was purportedly led by a comparable 22.1% slump from the China Sports Lottery to slightly over ¥132.52 billion ($18.45 billion) while the China Welfare Lottery had chalked up a 13% diminution to almost ¥112.81 billion ($15.71 billion).

Provincial performance:

Regarding seven-month figures from each of China’s 31 provinces, the official information reportedly furthermore showed that Guangdong Province had retained its title as the nation’s most lucrative lottery market despite recording an 18% year-on-year fall to about ¥22.72 billion ($3.16 billion). This was followed by the similarly-affluent Jiangsu Province, which is home to the large cities of Nanjing, Suzhou and Wuxi, although its figure was roughly 20% down on 2018’s comparable at roughly ¥20.84 billion ($2.89 billion).

It was further reported that Shandong Province had managed to grab third spot in terms of seven-month lottery sales despite the fact that its tally had experienced a 13.19% year-on-year decrease to hit almost ¥19.81 billion ($2.76 billion).