China's 2015 lottery sales down 3.8%

BEIJING - China's lottery sales dropped 3.8 percent year on year to 367.88 billion yuan ($56.1 billion) in 2015, official data showed on Thursday.

Welfare lottery sales decreased by 2.2 percent to 201.51 billion yuan, while the sports lottery slipped 5.7 percent to 166.37 billion yuan, the Ministry of Finance announced.

In December, 34.12 billion yuan's worth of lottery tickets were sold, a year-on-year decrease of 5.6 percent. Welfare lottery sales dropped 1.8 percent to 19.21 billion yuan.

There were some bright spots last year. The provinces of Henan, Fujian, and Yunnan each saw their lottery sales value rise by more than 1 billion yuan.

The revenues are used to cover administrative fees as well as the jackpot, and the rest to improve social welfare and sports facilities.