China Sports Lottery

What the China Sports Lottery is

The China Sports Lottery is the state-run sports betting and numbers lottery of mainland China. It is issued and organized by the Sports Lottery Administration Center of the General Administration of Sport, and provincial sports lottery centers sell within their own regions³. It is not a private company and not an offshore operator. It is the official system, and it has been running for decades.

It covers two broad families of games. The first is the sports book: football and basketball matches, sold under the Jingcai (competitive guessing) banner. The second is the numbers games, such as Super Lotto, which work like a traditional draw lottery rather than a sports bet⁵.

For a visitor or a new resident, the practical point is simple. The lottery exists, it is legal, and you buy it in person at a shop. There is no legal way to open an account and bet from your phone.

The only legal way to buy: physical ticket shops

Physical shops are the only regular and legal channel for buying sports lottery tickets in China¹. For football lottery specifically, the shops are the only official and legal channel in mainland China⁶. The state has never approved any institution or individual to run internet lottery sales, so offline shops are the only legal purchase channel⁷.

A legitimate shop is easy to spot. It has clear signage and the China Sports Lottery logo, and it displays a China Sports Lottery Sales Agency Certificate issued by the lottery center and stamped with its official seal⁸. The certificate is posted in a prominent position inside the store¹. If you do not see it, walk on.

Buying is a counter transaction. You tell the person behind the counter which game and which selections you want, pay in cash or by the payment method the shop accepts, and you get a printed paper ticket. That ticket is everything. It is the only prize redemption voucher in the whole system¹.

A few practical notes for a first visit:

• Bring your passport or ID if you are a visitor. Shops are used to local customers, and staff may ask.
• Bring cash as a backup. Small shops in some areas are cash-first.
• Check the printed ticket before you leave the counter. Confirm the match, your selection, the stake and the multiple.
• Keep the ticket flat and dry. A damaged or unreadable ticket cannot be redeemed³.

There is no membership, no account and no minimum spend beyond the price of a bet. You can walk in, buy one CNY 2 bet, and walk out.

Online and app betting is illegal

Playing on an offshore or domestic betting website is illegal in China, and the lottery center has never authorized any website, app, mini program or social software to sell sports lottery tickets¹. The official WeChat account, app and mini programs do not offer lottery sales functions at all⁶. Any online platform claiming to accept sports lottery bets is an illegal lottery⁸.

The practical risk is real. Online football betting is treated as a criminal offense, and organizing it, acting as an agent for it or taking part in it can lead to administrative or criminal liability⁹. Gambling abroad, online gambling, and providing money or technical support for gambling all violate Chinese law for Chinese citizens¹⁰. Unauthorized internet lottery sales, including issuing tickets through sales terminals, are prohibited and must be stopped¹¹.

There is also a straightforward consumer problem. A ticket bought through a website or app is likely tied to illegal lottery, private lottery, illegal gambling or fraud, and you may end up a participant in criminal activity¹. And even if a platform pays out once, you hold no paper ticket, which is the only accepted proof for a prize¹.

If you are in China and want to bet on football, the shop is the answer. If you want to see how the legal football and basketball games are structured, our guide to China Sports Lottery football and basketball games walks through the formats.

Bet types: which sporting events you can wager on

The sports side of the lottery is built around football and basketball, with several distinct games. Each has its own rules, its own bet options and its own prize caps.

Football. The core game is the Single-Match Win-Draw-Loss Game. Each match has three outcome options: home win, draw or home loss³. Results are based on the full 90 minutes including injury time of selected major international football matches³. You can bet a single match or combine matches into a parlay, and you can use single or multiple selections³. The multiplier range is 2 to 99 times³.

There is also a Win-Draw-Win game with nine bet options covering first half and full match result: home win/home win, home win/draw, home win/away win, draw/home win, draw/draw, draw/away win, away win/home win, away win/draw and away win/away win¹². The Total Goals game asks you to pick the combined goals of both teams, with eight options: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 or more¹³. The Shengcai 9-match game lets you pick one prediction per match as a single bet, or two or more predictions as a multiple bet¹⁴.

Basketball. The Basketball Big/Small game covers single betting and parlays, with parlays running from 2 to 99 legs¹⁵. The Single-Match Winning Margin game covers single-match betting, parlays, single selections and multiple selections¹⁶.

Numbers games. Super Lotto is the flagship draw game, with a basic bet at CNY 2 and an optional additional bet at CNY 1⁵. It pays fixed prizes at the lower tiers, including CNY 5 for the ninth prize, CNY 100 for the seventh and CNY 200 for the sixth⁵.

A quick comparison of the main sports games:

Bet price: CNY 2

The maximum stake on a single ticket is CNY 20,000³. A single-match football ticket can carry up to 10,000 bets².

A physical ticket synced to the lottery center system

Every bet you place in a shop is printed on a paper ticket that is tied to the lottery center's system. That is what makes the ticket worth something. The winning ticket is the only voucher for redemption, and a ticket that is altered, damaged or impossible to identify cannot be redeemed¹⁵. The same rule applies across the sports games: the paper ticket is the sole proof⁴.

Because the ticket is the proof, a few habits matter:

• Check the print quality at the counter. Faded or smudged print is a problem later.
• Do not fold the ticket along the printed area or leave it in a hot car.
• Keep it somewhere you will find it. You have 28 days including the draw date to claim, and unclaimed prizes are treated as forfeited².

Redemption is regional. Winning tickets can be cashed anywhere within the provincial-level administrative region where you bought them⁴. So a ticket bought in one province is not automatically redeemable in another. If you are traveling, cash out before you leave the province, or plan to come back.

If a match is void, refunds are handled within 60 calendar days at designated locations¹⁷. Results are settled on the referee's ruling at the end of the match period, and later changes to a result do not affect the confirmed outcome¹⁷. In basketball, a match interrupted at 35 minutes or more in a 40-minute game, or 43 minutes or more in a 48-minute game, and ruled complete by the referee or organizer, counts as valid¹⁶.

For the full picture on cashing out, including where to go and what to bring, see our guide to claiming a lottery prize in China.

What a bet pays: the World Cup example

Prize money in the sports games comes from a fixed split of sales. In the Single-Match Win-Draw-Loss Game, 73 percent of total sales goes to prizes, 9 percent to the issuance fee and 18 percent to the public welfare fund³. Within the prize fund, 72 percent is current-period prizes and 1 percent is the adjustment fund³. The Win-Draw-Win game uses the same 73/9/18 split¹², as does the Total Goals game¹³ and the basketball Winning Margin game¹⁶.

What that means for you is simple: the odds are set before sales open for each match, and the fixed prize shown at the time you place your bet is the prize you get if you win. Later adjustments do not change your payout³.

Take a World Cup match as a worked example. You walk into a shop and put CNY 2 on a home win in a single-match bet. If the home team wins in the 90 minutes plus injury time, you collect the fixed prize attached to that selection at the time you bet. If you instead combine that match with five others in a six-leg parlay, your cap rises to CNY 1,000,000, but every leg has to come in³.

The caps step up with the size of the parlay:

• Single bet or one-match multiple: CNY 100,000¹²
• Two or three matches: CNY 200,000³
• Four or five matches: CNY 500,000³
• Six matches or more: CNY 1,000,000³

Basketball follows the same ladder. A single-match bet caps at CNY 100,000, two and three-match parlays at CNY 200,000, four and five-match parlays at CNY 500,000, and six or more at CNY 1,000,000¹⁶.

One tax point worth knowing before you plan around a big win. Single winnings over CNY 10,000 are fully taxed under the individual income tax rules¹⁸.

If you want to compare how the legal football product here sits next to other options in the region, our pages on sports betting in China and on HKJC football betting cover the neighbors.