China has sold over 4.83 billion yuan (US$582 million) worth of
soccer lottery tickets with 235 people or groups waking up
millionaires, the top lottery official said Thursday.
Sun Jinfang, director of China's Sports Lottery Administration,
said the sales of soccer lottery tickets have reached 4.83 billion
yuan, of which 1.6 billion yuan will go to welfare funds.
Topping the lottery sales are Guangdong (1.96 billion yuan),
Liaoning (496 million yuan) and Beijing (388 billion yuan),
according to Sun.
Sun said the lottery has produced 35,057 first prizes and 83, 912
second prizes, and made 235 people or groups 1 million yuan
(US$120,000) richer and the luckiest 22 five million yuan
(US$640,000) richer.
The soccer lottery was launched last October following China's
first ever entry into the World Cup finals and closed on April
27.
Lottery players paid 2 yuan (US$2.4 cents) to predict the results
of 13 soccer matches, including nine Italian first division league
and four from English Premier League, with the digit "3" indicating
victory of the home team, "1" draw and "0" defeat of the host.
Buyers who got all the results right were rewarded the top prize,
50 percent of the prize pool, capped at 5 million yuan, and those
with 12 correct answers share much smaller second prize.
Weekly sales soared from 21 million yuan from the first week to 230
million yuan early April as Chinese soccer fans' enthusiasm
rose.
( May 10, 2002)