In China, a sharp rise in the sale of tickets into the China Sports Lottery reportedly helped overall lottery revenues for July increase by some 61.9% year-on-year to reach $7.99 billion.

Benefits from football interest:

According to a report from GGRAsia citing official data from the giant Asian nation’s Ministry of Finance, the China Sports Lottery benefitted from interest in the 2018 FIFA World Cup as ticket sales for the 31-day month swelled by 117.5% year-on-year to hit almost $5.18 billion. Its counterpart China Welfare Lottery also profited from the quadrennial football extravaganza held in neighboring Russia as its revenues grew by 9.7% to arrive at approximately $2.79 billion.

China is the planet’s most populated nation with in excess of 1.4 billion people and the official lottery data reportedly detailed that July saw lottery sales post year-on-year improvements in every one of its 31 provinces and municipalities.

Seven-month figures improve:

GGRAsia reported that the July results mean that lottery sales over the course of the year’s first seven months rose by some 25.6% when compared with the same period in 2017 to reach approximately $43.79 billion. The China Sports Lottery led the way with revenues up by just over 47% year-on-year to about $24.85 billion followed by the China Welfare Lottery with a 5% boost pushing its tally to almost $18.95 billion.

Guangdong leads the way:

With some 108.5 million inhabitants, Guangdong is the most populated province in China and it also led the way in terms of lottery revenues as an 18.9% year-on-year swell pushed its seven-month figure up to approximately $4.04 billion.

The northern coastal province of Jiangsu occupied the second spot due to a 35.2% rise pushing its tally for the same period up to nearly $3.81 billion. GGRAsia detailed that these were more distantly followed into third place by the eastern province of Shandong thanks to an 18.8% improvement taking its corresponding figure to $3.33 billion.