(ECNS) - Several lottery service platforms are thought to have suspended betting on the 2018 FIFA World Cup, China Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.
The app and WeChat account of Tiantianzhongcaipiao ( "Winning lottery everyday" in English) and another platform called Renrenzhongcaipiao ("Everyone winning lottery" in English) cancelled the selling of lottery tickets related to the World Cup.
After the opening of the World Cup, a person used the Renrenzhongcaipiao app to buy lottery tickets but couldn’t get physical proof of the purchase, reported Beijing Morning News. The app said it was entrusted by the third party to facilitate lottery sales, rather than engaging directly in online lottery sales.
The lottery issuer, the National Welfare Lottery Center, said it has not authorized any online portal to offer online sales and that all app-based transactions are therefore illegal.
The usual trick for the lottery website is to hype a winner of a small amount of money, then close the website and take the money in case the winner hits the jackpot, according to the report.
A financial staff member committed suicide in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, after embezzling the company’s money to buy lottery tickets and losing the money, CCTV reported.
China has maintained a robust regulation of lotteries. On January 15, 2015, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the State General Administration of Sport issued a rule requiring lottery ticketing centers throughout the country to conduct self-examinations of online ticket sales. In April 2016, five central government agencies banned online lottery sales offered without authorization.
However, it is difficult to supervise Internet lottery sales when profits can be huge, so some private websites have issued fake lottery tickets, which had nothing to do with lottery tickets issued by the state.
