Chinese youth drive lottery ticket sales to record highs amid job market struggles
By Minh Hieu  June 5, 2024 | 05:44 am PT
Lottery scratch tickets in China offer players a chance to win over one million yuan (US$137,980). Illustration photo by Unplash
Lottery scratch tickets, offering players a chance to win over one million yuan (US$137,980), have been selling at record-high volumes in China as the country’s youth use them for stress relief amid a challenging job market.
Sales of these tickets in China hit a 10-year-high of 39 billion yuan (US$5.38 billion) in the first quarter of this year, according to figures from China’s Finance Ministry cited by The Straits Times.
Last year, sales of lottery scratch-offs totaled 119 billion yuan, more than double from 2022.
Among the lottery players, nearly 85% are 18-34 years old and over 60% have at least an undergraduate degree, according to a report by Chinese market research institute Mob.
Faced with an economy where youth unemployment is expected to grow and job security is not guaranteed amid layoffs and pay cuts across multiple industries, Chinese youth are embracing the lottery as a form of entertainment and a chance at a financial windfall.
While buyers of these tickets, priced at 5-50 yuan each, get nothing most of the time, they have a slim chance of winning as much as one million yuan. Most youth turn to the lottery for its emotional values.
With scratch tickets, buyers know whether they have won a prize within seconds, bringing them instant excitement, Li Hai, dean of the School of Economics and Management at Shanghai University of Sport, told Global Times.
Many young professionals in the country have also shared on social media platform Xiaohongshu that they incorporate the scratch-offs into their daily routines as a motivation booster, according to China Daily newspaper.
Wang Le, 23, who has a habit of scratching one lottery ticket off before leaving work each day, told the Beijing Youth Daily: “It feels like celebrating the end of each workday.”
<!–
–>
(function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)(0);if(d.getElementById(id))return;js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”
