Call for lottery sales revamp

Meanwhile, Li said, what concerns him more is the lack of professionalism and negative attitude of the administrators and operators of China's lottery industry.

"Sometimes the design of the game is a joke. For example, in the game to guess the last eight teams in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, there was even an option for three teams from one group," he said. A maximum of two from each group could get through to the next stage.

Misplaced expectations of lottery buyers have led to many conspiracy theories about winners, he said.

When the 570 million yuan prize was reported, many netizens expressed their suspicions, putting forward all sorts of "evidence". The Beijing Welfare Lottery Center refused to comment on any of the questions raised.

"People should realize that the lottery is definitely not an investment channel because its average input-output ratio is always below one," Li said.

"For example, many football fans buy lottery tickets but what they end up doing is to just losing less money. It is those people who know nothing about football who win the jackpot because there are always dark horses."

Li accused lottery administrators of being uncooperative and not promoting the games as well as they could. "The jackpot news was supposed to be a good opportunity for brand promotion but the authorities have turned something good into something bad," he said.

Meanwhile, Li said, the authorities should play a more positive role in developing the social welfare function of the lottery industry.

Currently most of the lottery sales income is used to replenish the social security fund. Li suggested that more should be given to lower-income groups because they bought most tickets.

"It could be an effective way to balance income distribution," Li said.

Since 1987, China's lottery rights have been in the hands of the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the General Administration of Sport, while the Ministry of Finance is responsible for the supervision of the industry.

Due to the many issues caused by multi-headed management, some suggested that there should be a lottery regulatory commission to oversee the issuing, management and supervision of the multibillion yuan business, just like the regulators in the banking and securities markets.

But Su Guojing, a lottery expert who is also the founder of Asian Responsible Gaming Alliance, said a more feasible way would be to establish a "National Lottery Development Bureau", which brings in all the administrative bodies, apart from the issuing function, from the three ministerial bodies.

Meanwhile, there should be more rules to replace the "Lottery Regulations", a 10-page document that has been the only law for the multibillion yuan industry.

"Internationally, the lottery is only a small part of the commercial gambling industry but in China it represents a much wider concept, including the traditional lottery, the sports lottery and other products," Su said.

According to Su, approximately 50 percent of the lottery sales revenue in 2011 was used as prizes.