China Lottery

The two official lotteries: Welfare and Sports

China's lottery market is split between two state-run organizations. The China Welfare Lottery, run by the China Welfare Lottery Issuance and Administration Center, funds social welfare programs. Its best-known games are Double Color Ball, Kuaile 8, Qilecai, FC 3D and scratch cards². The China Sports Lottery, run by the Sports Lottery Administration Center of the General Administration of Sport, funds sports development and offers Super Lotto, 7 Star Lottery, Pailie 3, Pailie 5, Kuai 3 and betting on football and basketball³.

Both lotteries sell through the same kind of network: small licensed shops you find on street corners, in residential neighborhoods and near markets. Between them they have a draw almost every evening of the week, and several games draw daily.

The money split is fixed by regulation. On the Sports Lottery's single-match games, for example, 73% of sales goes to prizes, 9% to issuance costs and 18% to the public welfare fund⁶. On Super Lotto it is 51% to prizes, 13% to issuance and 36% to the welfare fund³. Double Color Ball puts 50% of sales into prizes, with 49% for the current draw and 1% held as an adjustment fund².

Who can play

Anyone aged 18 or over can walk into a lottery station and buy tickets, and that includes foreign visitors and residents; there is no citizenship requirement at the counter. What the law does prohibit is selling to minors: no tickets may be sold to anyone under 18, and no prize may be paid to a minor, with shops allowed to ask for ID if your age is unclear⁵. The same rule appears in every game's official rules⁷.

The one thing nobody can do, local or foreign, is buy online. Unauthorized internet sales of lottery are banned outright, and the Sports Lottery states plainly that it has never authorized any website, app, mini program or social software to sell its tickets⁴. Anything sold online is linked to illegal gambling or fraud, and tickets bought that way are not valid for claiming⁴. The paper ticket is the only redemption voucher⁴.

China Welfare Lottery games: Double Color Ball, 3D, Kuaile 8 and more

The Welfare Lottery's lineup covers every style of number game. Here is the weekly and daily schedule at a glance:

Draws are televised and streamed, with draw videos published on the official sites, so checking China lottery results the same evening is easy⁹. Double Color Ball is the biggest of them all, and it has its own in-depth page on Double Color Ball (Shuang Se Qiu). FC 3D and its Sports Lottery sibling Pailie 3 are covered on 3D, Pailie 3 and Pailie 5, and the fast keno-style games on High-Frequency Lottery Games.

Double Color Ball: how a CNY 2 bet works

A Double Color Ball bet costs CNY 2 and consists of 6 red ball numbers chosen from 1 to 33 plus 1 blue ball number from 1 to 16². You can pick your own numbers or let the machine choose, and you can play single bets or compound bets: a red-ball multiple takes 7 to 20 reds with 1 blue, a blue-ball multiple takes 6 reds with 2 to 16 blues, and a full multiple takes 7 to 20 reds and 2 to 16 blues². Banker bets let you lock 1 to 5 numbers as bankers¹⁰.

The prize table is simple at the low end and floating at the top:

The first and second prizes are pari-mutuel: the high-tier fund is what remains of the 49% prize share after all fixed prizes are paid, split among winners, with a national prize pool rolling over when nobody hits the jackpot². The single-bet cap is CNY 5 million by national regulation, but when the prize pool is high enough, a first-prize winner holding a ticket of at least CNY 20 in bets can reach CNY 10 million on one bet¹⁰. The official site still promotes it as the game where "CNY 2 can win 10 million"¹².

There is also a Fortune Prize (福运奖) tier that pays on a 3+0 match. It only operates when the prize pool stands at CNY 1.5 billion or more, and it switches off once the pool drops below CNY 300 million after a draw¹⁰.

Super Lotto: the Sports Lottery's flagship draw

Super Lotto (Da Le Tou) is the Sports Lottery's answer to Double Color Ball, drawn every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday¹. A basic bet costs CNY 2: pick 5 numbers from 01 to 35 in the front area and 2 numbers from 01 to 12 in the back area³. For CNY 1 more per bet you can add the additional bet (追加), which pays 80% of the corresponding basic prize on the top tiers³.

Super Lotto has nine prize tiers. The first and second are floating, capped at CNY 5 million per bet; the third to ninth are fixed:

The fixed figures come from the official rules⁷. A single ticket can carry up to CNY 20,000 in basic bets, or CNY 30,000 with additional bets, and you can buy up to 99 consecutive draws in advance³. The Sports Lottery also runs occasional national prize giveaways: a CNY 1 billion promotion ran across draws starting April 13, 2022, adding extra money to the prize pools¹⁴.

7 Star Lottery and the other draw games

7 Star Lottery (Qi Xing Cai) is a numbers game rather than a lotto. You pick a 7-digit number: the first six digits run from 000000 to 999999 and the last digit from 0 to 14¹⁵. Drawn every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday at 21:25, it pays a top prize of up to CNY 5 million if all 7 digits match in order¹⁶.

The prize structure rewards partial matches in position. The first prize takes 90% of the floating fund plus the accumulated pool; the second prize takes the other 10%, and both are capped at CNY 5 million per bet¹⁵. Below that, the third prize pays a fixed CNY 3,000 for matching 5 positions, the fourth CNY 500 for 4 positions, and the sixth prize pays CNY 5 for matching as few as 2 positions or just the last digit¹⁶. One quirk: if the prize pool ever reaches CNY 300 million before a draw, the first and second prize shares invert, with second prize taking 90%¹⁵. A single ticket can hold up to CNY 20,000 in bets¹⁵.

On the Welfare side, Qilecai (Seven Lottery) draws every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 21:15, a mid-week lotto option for players who want a draw on the nights Double Color Ball is dark⁹.

High-frequency games: Kuai 3, Pailie 3 and daily draws

For players who want action every night, both lotteries run daily games. Kuai 3 (Fast Three) and the other quick games are covered on the High-Frequency Lottery Games page.

Pailie 3, the Sports Lottery's 3-digit game, draws daily at 21:25¹⁸. It has three ways to play:

• Direct selection pays CNY 1,040 if your 3 digits match the winning number exactly in order¹⁸.
• Group 3 pays CNY 346 when the winning number has any two digits the same and yours match in any order¹⁸.
• Group 6 pays CNY 173 when all three winning digits differ and yours match in any order¹⁸.

The Welfare Lottery's FC 3D draws daily at 21:15 with the same three play styles and the same CNY 1,040 / 346 / 173 payouts¹⁹. To mark the game's 20th anniversary in 2024, Shanghai ran a CNY 27 million prize promotion over 40 draws from March 28, 2024, including a special Group 3 prize of up to CNY 346 extra per bet²¹.

Kuaile 8 is a keno-style game drawn daily at 21:30, where you pick from 1 to 10 numbers out of 80²². The payouts scale with how many you pick and how many you hit: pick 10 and match 5 for CNY 3, match 6 for CNY 5; pick 9 and match all 9 for CNY 8,000, capped at CNY 250,000 per bet; pick 7 and match 6 for CNY 2,880; pick 8 and match 6 for CNY 300²².

Scratch cards and promotions

Both lotteries sell scratch cards (刮刮乐), the instant-win paper tickets you scratch at the counter. New tickets launch regularly by region: the CNY 30 好运来 ticket rolled out across Beijing in 2023, with a linked promotion giving extra scratch or Kuaile 8 tickets to players who scratched a designated prize tier²³. The Scratch Cards in China page covers the range in detail.

Sports betting through the China Sports Lottery

The Sports Lottery is also China's only legal sports betting channel, sold at the same physical stores. The main football game is win-draw-loss: pick the result of a match, or parlay several matches on one ticket, at CNY 2 per bet²⁵. Odds are fixed by the Sports Lottery Administration Center before sales open and do not move with betting volume²⁶. Other football formats include total goals, with 8 options from 0 up to 7 or more²⁷, and half-time/full-time, with 9 combinations of first-half and full-match results²⁵.

Prize caps depend on how many matches you combine: single bets and 1-match multiples are capped at CNY 100,000, 2 and 3-match multiples at CNY 200,000, 4 and 5-match multiples at CNY 500,000, and parlays of 6 legs or more at CNY 1 million²⁵. Multipliers from 2 to 99 times are allowed, and a single ticket cannot exceed CNY 20,000⁶.

Basket betting works the same way, with single-match games on winning margins and big/small totals, the same CNY 2 unit price and a CNY 100,000 cap on single-bet prizes²⁸. The full picture is on Sports Betting in China and Jingcai Sports Lottery Betting.

Where to buy tickets and how prizes are paid

You buy tickets at licensed physical stores only. A genuine China Sports Lottery shop is identifiable by clear signage and the China Sports Lottery logo, and it displays a Sales Agency Certificate issued by the lottery center with its official seal⁴. If you are unsure a shop is genuine, the Sports Lottery hotline 95086 takes reports and complaints⁴.

Keep your paper ticket: it is the only redemption voucher⁴. Winners must claim within 60 natural days of the draw date at a designated location, and if the last day falls on a public holiday the deadline extends to the first working day after²⁴. Miss the deadline and the prize is forfeited to the public welfare fund⁷. Prizes are paid in one lump sum in RMB cash or cash check, never in foreign currency, never in goods and never in installments²⁴.

Winnings count as incidental income under the individual income tax law and are taxed per winning, with the paying station handling the deduction on larger prizes²⁹. For the tax details, see Tax on Gambling Winnings in China. If you have questions on the Welfare side, its service hotline is 954168³⁰.

Hong Kong options for mainland visitors: Mark Six and the HKJC

Mainland China has no legal horse racing betting. A trial at Wuhan ended on December 12, 1999, mainly because the operation had no legal status at the time, and a racing betting trial studied in 2007 was never formally approved³¹. Football lottery in physical stores remains the only legal sports betting channel on the mainland³².

The nearest alternative is Hong Kong, where the recognized gambling channels are the Mark Six lottery and horse racing through the Hong Kong Jockey Club³³. Mark Six is a conventional lotto draw, covered on Mark Six Lottery: How to Play and What You Can Win. The HKJC also takes bets on overseas football matches through its Football service, and it does not accept credit betting³⁴.

The HKJC's betting channels include its two racecourses, off-course betting branches, telephone betting and online and mobile betting, and all of them are strictly off-limits to anyone under 18³⁴. During the 2020 racing shutdown, for example, the club kept its online digital betting service running daily while branches and telephone betting ran limited hours, which shows how the channels divide up in practice³⁵. The racecourses themselves, Happy Valley Racecourse and Sha Tin Racecourse, and the club's full operation on The Hong Kong Jockey Club, each have their own page.