China’s disgruntled youth gamble on life-changing short cut to riches, but are lotteries just a ‘tax on the poor’?
- A record 175.15 billion yuan (US$24.5 billion) of lottery tickets and scratch cards were sold in the first four months of 2023, up by 49.3 per cent from the same time last year
- Punters are seeking life-changing riches, but economists say poor economic prospects and the government’s financial situation are behind the rise in popularity
Three times a week, 20 yuan (US$2.8) at a time, Beijing-based banker Fred Jia has made buying lottery tickets a routine after work.
He picked up the habit because of the football World Cup last year, and went on to buy other types of tickets after the tournament in Qatar had ended.
Each time, the 28-year-old squeezes through the crowd – many of them middle-aged men with cigarettes in hand, reading charts dotted with past winning numbers and sharing experiences – in the small lottery storefront near his home, before raising his voice to ask the shopkeeper to input his lucky numbers.
Most of the time, the money is just poured down the drain, except for the few occasions when he has won as much as 20 yuan to just break even.
I want to be rich and change my life, but my job can’t bring me that
“I want to be rich and change my life, but my job can’t bring me that,” he said. “How do you know you won’t be the next big winner?”