Before lottery tickets were allowed in China in 1987, people rushed to buy similar items in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, in January that year.

In the June 2012 photo, a lottery player studies his choices on a computer at a shop in Shanghai. Since the first welfare lottery ticket was sold in Shijiazhuang, in North China's Hebei province, in July 1987, the country's lottery industry has thrived. In the past three decades, it has developed into a regulated market, which today is worth 200 billion yuan ($30.8 billion). A variety of tickets are available, and some 200 million people are the estimated beneficiaries of lottery funds in China..