China has no legal commercial casinos.

It prohibits foreign lotteries, restricts online betting and maintains one of the world’s most controlled gambling systems.

Yet mainland China sold RMB627.97 billion—approximately US$87 billion—in legal lottery products during 2025.

That market does not operate through government institutions alone.

Behind 中国福利彩票—the China Welfare Lottery—and 中国体育彩票—the China Sports Lottery—sits a group of technology companies building transaction platforms, betting terminals, security systems and regulatory software.

Their work rarely appears in international gaming media. The companies are usually found inside Chinese procurement portals, provincial budgets and corporate filings.

This is not a complete map of China’s lottery-technology industry. Numerous additional companies supply printing, logistics, cybersecurity, communications, maintenance and provincial software. This article focuses on several of the largest or most structurally important providers identified through public contracts and corporate records.

中体彩科技发展有限公司—China Sports Lottery Technology Development—is one of the most important companies in the system.

Established in 2002, the state-owned technology provider develops and maintains core systems for the China Sports Lottery. Its responsibilities include transaction processing, platform development, testing, cybersecurity and national data infrastructure.

Its most important project is G3, the third generation of China’s unified Sports Lottery technology platform.

Physical retail terminals across all 31 provincial-level markets have migrated to G3. The platform connects local sales with central systems while supporting terminal management, transactions and operational security.

China’s General Administration of Sport described G3 as the most complex information-technology project ever constructed in the country’s lottery industry.

National platforms still require physical machines inside thousands of authorised lottery shops.

深圳穗彩科技开发有限公司—Shenzhen Suicai Technology Development—builds lottery terminals, sales software and information-processing systems.

Its products range from full-size counter machines to compact terminals designed for convenience stores and other businesses where lottery sales are not the primary activity.

Suicai forms part of the lottery operations associated with Shenzhen-listed Telling Holding. The group claims to serve clients in 14 provinces and support more than 40,000 terminals across markets containing over 600 million people.

These are not ordinary point-of-sale machines.

A 投注终端—betting terminal—must connect securely to authorised systems, authenticate transactions and receive continuing software, maintenance and security support. Suppliers therefore remain connected to the network after the hardware has been installed.

Hong Kong-listed AGTech is another major supplier of lottery terminals in mainland China.

Its traditional and Android-based machines are included in the equipment lists used by provincial Sports Lottery centres when purchasing authorised hardware.

AGTech is controlled by Alibaba Group and is increasingly associated with digital payments and local consumer services. Its lottery-terminal business, however, remains a direct connection to China’s regulated physical wagering infrastructure.

The company supplies technology but cannot create independent games, control lottery funds or operate an unrestricted betting platform.

That separation defines the Chinese model: private and listed companies can provide infrastructure, while the state retains control over authorised products, transaction data and financial flows.

Guangdong Jucai Intelligent Technology focuses on lottery systems and operational services.

In March 2026, its wholly owned subsidiary Guangdong Caihui Intelligent Technology won a RMB14.48 million contract—approximately US$2 million—from the Zhejiang Sports Lottery Management Centre.

The project concerns an operations system for 即开票, China’s instant-win lottery tickets.

Such systems help manage ticket inventory, activation, distribution, sales and reporting. Every physical ticket must remain traceable as it moves from production and storage to a local retailer.

The Zhejiang contract shows how provincial lottery centres create a separate market for specialist software companies beneath the national technology layer.

The next stage is not simply selling more terminals.

In 2026, the Shanghai Sports Lottery Management Centre sought a RMB3.96 million technology platform that would connect with the national core transaction system and combine sales, retail-channel and compliance data.

The system was designed to build analytical models, identify operational risks and generate warnings for regulators. Important cases could be followed from detection through intervention and final resolution.

This turns lottery shops into monitored nodes inside a much larger data network.

The commercial opportunity is therefore expanding beyond ticket machines into cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data analysis and automated supervision.

China’s lottery suppliers do not resemble casino operators in Macao or international online betting platforms.

They are hardware manufacturers, software developers and systems integrators working behind two state-controlled lottery brands.

Access to the market depends on technical certification, public tenders, security requirements and relationships with national or provincial lottery institutions. A contract in one province does not automatically provide access to the rest of China.

That makes the industry difficult to enter—and difficult for outsiders to map.

China may prohibit most conventional gambling businesses, but it still requires the same underlying capabilities: transactions, terminals, security, retail distribution and risk monitoring.

The companies profiled here represent only the most visible layer of a much larger supply chain. Mapping the remaining provincial suppliers, contract winners and specialist manufacturers requires following local procurement records over time.

China has a real gambling-technology industry.

It is simply hidden behind the architecture of the state.

East Asia Reports
Web: eastasiareports.com · Email: [email protected]
Author — Adrià Mas Rodríguez