China’s lottery market posted a sharp year-on-year increase in June, with nationwide sales reaching RMB 75.98 billion (about US$10.6 billion), according to the Ministry of Finance.
The figure was 39.5% higher than in June 2025, with the ministry attributing the increase mainly to stronger sales of sports prediction lottery products linked to this year’s football World Cup.
The June data provides a useful snapshot of how China’s legal gambling market behaves during a major international sports event: betting demand can accelerate rapidly, but the growth is not shared equally across every lottery channel.
Sports lottery drove the jump
The clearest story in the June figures is the gap between sports lottery and welfare lottery performance.
According to the Ministry of Finance, sports lottery institutions sold RMB 59.22 billion (about US$8.2 billion), up 62.9% year on year.
By contrast, welfare lottery institutions sold RMB 16.76 billion (about US$2.3 billion), down 7.6%.
That divergence shows how heavily short-term market momentum was concentrated in sports-related products rather than across the lottery system as a whole.
China’s sports lottery generated RMB 59.22 billion in June 2026, up 62.9% year on year, while welfare lottery sales fell 7.6% to RMB 16.76 billion. Source: Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China.
Prediction products surged, while instant and keno products declined
The strongest growth came from prediction-type lottery products, which generated RMB 47.68 billion (about US$6.6 billion) in June, up 96.0% year on year.
That category alone represented 62.8% of total lottery sales during the month, far ahead of every other product type.
Other segments were considerably weaker:
Lotto-style number games: RMB 15.28 billion, broadly flat year on year.
Instant tickets: RMB 9.99 billion, down 10.6%.
Keno-type products: RMB 3.04 billion, down 18.1%.
The June mix therefore points to an event-led surge in sports prediction products rather than a broad improvement across China’s entire lottery portfolio.
The first half tells a much more moderate story
Despite June’s dramatic increase, China’s lottery market was considerably less explosive over the first half of 2026.
From January through June, nationwide lottery sales reached RMB 326.87 billion (about US$45.5 billion), only 2.8% higher than a year earlier.
Within that total:
Welfare lottery: RMB 100.09 billion, down 6.6%.
Sports lottery: RMB 226.79 billion, up 7.6%.
June was therefore an acceleration point rather than a reflection of the underlying growth rate for the whole year.
The same pattern appears by product. Prediction-type lottery sales reached RMB 159.27 billion during the first six months, up 13.6%, while lotto, instant-ticket and keno sales all declined.
Every province recorded growth in June
The Ministry of Finance said lottery sales increased year on year in all 31 provincial-level markets during June.
The largest increases by value were recorded in Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shandong.
The six-month picture was less uniform. From January through June, 27 provincial-level markets recorded higher sales, while four declined: Chongqing, Shaanxi, Jiangxi and Beijing.
That difference reinforces how unusual June was compared with the broader first-half trend.
China’s June growth was concentrated, not universal
The headline 39.5% increase makes June look like an extraordinary month for China’s lottery market — and it was.
But the underlying numbers matter more.
Welfare lottery sales were still falling. Instant tickets and keno were shrinking. First-half nationwide growth remained only 2.8%.
The real expansion happened in sports lottery and prediction products, which benefited directly from demand around the football World Cup.
For companies monitoring China’s regulated gambling market, that distinction matters. June does not show every legal betting product expanding simultaneously. It shows how a major sports event can temporarily reshape the product mix of one of the world’s largest state-controlled lottery markets.
East Asia Reports
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Author — Adrià Mas Rodríguez