China is expected to issue its first national regulation on the
supervision of the fast-growing lottery industry next year to stamp
out fraud, which has been on the rise since the country launched
its first lottery two decades ago.
Legislators will draw on the experience of other countries and
regions to work out the regulation and make explicit stipulations
about each aspect of lotteries, such as the distribution, sales,
announcement of results and fund management, an official with the
Legislative Affairs Office (LAO) of the State Council said.
"Other countries and regions always make laws first before
developing the lottery industry, while China has acted to the
contrary," Ding Feng, deputy head of LAO's Department of Political
Science and Law, Labor, Social Security and Legislative Affairs,
told a symposium held in Shanghai.
"Lack of laws and regulations on lottery supervision has become
a significant factor that has impeded the sound development of the
industry," he said.
Lotteries have generated huge economic and social returns in
China in the past two decades. China had issued a total of 363
billion yuan (US$49 billion) worth of lottery tickets by the end of
last year, and more than a third of the money was spent on public
welfare, such as the development of public sports facilities,
education and health care for the handicapped.
Buying lottery tickets has also given common Chinese people the
chance to get rich. Last week, a player, yet to be identified, from
the northwestern province of Gansu won the country's largest ever
individual lottery prize of 102.7 million yuan. The winner bought
20 identical "Double Colour Ball" tickets issued by the China
Welfare Lottery at a cost of 40 yuan.
But the industry has also encountered growing problems such as
fraud and other malpractice.
Last month, a 36-year-old lottery vendor in the northeastern
Chinese city of Anshan was jailed for life for taking advantage of
a flaw in the Welfare Lottery "3D" system to cash 28 million yuan
in lottery tickets illegally.
A couple of months ago, two bank employees in the northern city
of Handan were sentenced to death after being convicted of the
country's largest ever bank theft involving 50.95 million yuan,
which was spent on lottery tickets.
In 2004, several people were found guilty of manipulating a
scratch-and-win sports lottery in northwestern city of Xi'an and
were sentenced to varying terms in prison. During the fraud
incident, a contractor of lottery tickets cheated his way to top
prizes - a BMW and 120,000 yuan - by marking lottery tickets and
employing four people to falsely claim the prizes. The real lottery
top prize winner Liu Liang. a young migrant worker, finally
received the prize that was due and accepted apologies from local
sports authorities.
Calls for publishing regulations or even a law on lottery
supervision have been voiced repeatedly in recent years.
At present, China has only a provisional regulation on the
management of lottery distribution and sales, which was issued by
the Ministry of Finance in 2002.
"But it's only a departmental regulation," Ding said.
Actually, China has begun drawing up a national regulation more
than a decade ago and it has been delayed year after year due to
divergences among different government departments, such as the
Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Civil Affairs and General
Administration of Sport.
"The regulation is expected to be issued next year, a result of
the growing public attention and acceleration of the legislation
process," Ding said.
China has stepped up efforts to crack down on fraud in
lotteries.
Last month, four government ministries -- Finance, Public
Security, Civil Affairs, Information Industry -- and the General
Administration of Sport jointly launched a campaign to crack down
on illegal lottery selling on the Internet to fight lottery-related
fraud.
"Internet-based illegal lottery selling is on the rise in recent
years, posing a threat to the operation of the lottery market,"
said a bulletin issued by the ministries.
The bulletin listed some of the illegal activities, such as
selling private lotteries under the name of state-run lotteries,
providing illegal channels for sports gambling and underground Mark
Six and lottery-related fraud.
The China Welfare Lottery Administrative Center and the sports
lottery administrative center of the China General Administration
of Sport are the only two legitimate lottery sellers in China and
they are both state-run.
(Xinhua News Agency December 2, 2007)