40 years on

On June 26, 1992, Beijing issued the first soccer lottery tickets in the capital. The lottery was sponsored by the Chinese Football Association.

The photo from China Daily shows a man checking the tickets he bought.

Lotteries in China can be traced back to the 1880s. But after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, authorities banned gambling.

It was not until the country embraced the reform and opening-up policy in 1978 that the government started rethinking lotteries.

In 1986, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, approved a plan proposed by the Ministry of Civil Affairs to introduce lotteries.

On July 26 1987, Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, took the initiative by issuing the country’s first lottery tickets.

China has two lotteries: the sports lottery and the welfare lottery. Lottery sales rose 9 percent year-on-year to 41.7 billion yuan ($6.4 billion) in April, official data showed. Sales of welfare lottery tickets were 19.7 billion yuan, while sports lottery sales were 22 billion yuan.

Facing the growing lottery market, authorities have accelerated innovation in the sports lottery. Early this year, the central government announced plans to transform Hainan province into a horse racing and sports lottery hub.