A man crouches in a TV store in Wuhan to watch a World Cup game between England and Uruguay. Sales of a government-run World Cup-related lottery reached 4 billion yuan by Saturday. Photo: Reuters
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https://scmp.com/news/china/article/1539519/chinese-student-leaps-his-death-over-heavy-world-cup-gambling-losses China
Chinese student leaps to his death after heavy World Cup gambling losses
Second-year student jumped from seventh floor of campus building after distraught phone call, according to witness
Young people and residents watch a broadcast of a 2014 Brazil World Cup group match which is projected onto an ancient city wall in Nanjing. Photo: Reuters
A college student in China leaped to his death after losing more than US$3,000 by gambling on the World Cup, state media said today.
The second-year student, identified only by his surname Lin, jumped from the seventh floor of a building on his campus yesterday, a witness told the Information Times.
“I heard him say, 'Do not force me’ and ’Give me two more days and I’ll return you the money’,” the report quoted the witness as saying.
“He talked on the phone for more than 10 minutes. I saw him hang up and stand up and then all in a sudden he just disappeared,” she said.
Lin was rushed to hospital in Panyu in the southern province of Guangdong, but doctors were not able to revive him, the newspaper said.
Another student described as a classmate of Lin’s said the gambler had lost nearly 20,000 yuan (HK$25,100) in bets on several World Cup games, it said.
“We heard that he borrowed quite a lot of money and the interest rate was rather high,” said the student, according to the report.
It did not specify which teams Lin had backed. China has millions of football fans, some of who are both devoted viewers and passionate gamblers.
Sales of a government-run World Cup-related lottery reached 4 billion yuan by Saturday, nearly twice the 2.3 billion yuan sold during the 2010 tournament, the China News Service reported today.
Total sales of the tickets are expected to exceed 10 billion yuan, it said, citing an official with the General Administration of Sport.
The news follows a series of reports last week about tragedy befalling people during the late-night World Cup games in China.
A 22-year-old woman in Liaoning province jumped from the ninth floor of her apartment block after quarrelling with her boyfriend, who left her alone in the flat to watch a World Cup game.
In Chongqing a woman, who was a long-time fan of Germany, suffered a miscarriage while celebrating a goal by the German side against Portugal.
Another man slipped into a coma after staying up several nights to watch the games, while another was found dead in his room with the World Cup playing on the computer.