Novel coronavirus, aka COVID19, is impacting all aspects of life in China from what people are eating to whether or not they’re able to purchase lottery tickets. While Chinese consuers have thus far had ample access to food and other necessities during quarantine periods, they haven’t had access to lottery ticket retailers and sales figures from the Chinese lottery bear out that very ugly situation.
According to a recent report on Asia Gaming Brief, Chinese lottery ticket sales plunged 43 percent when compared January 2019. Sale of tickets brought in just $27.2 RMB ($3.9 billion USD) during the month of January. That number reflects the staggering shutdown of public life in China as authorities grappled to take control of the emerging coronavirus, which emerged in Wuhan sometime in December 2019. Much of the country’s massive population was either in government mandated quarantines or simply avoiding contact during that period, including the two-week Lunar New Year celebration.
Even worse the lottery’s traditional spring shutdown, which normally runs from January 22 to January 30 has been extended indefinitely. That means that there will be no lottery sales for the entire month of February. This single instance of coronavirus impacting business will have a massive ripple effect on the retailers who count on lottery ticket sales for their revenue. Government officials are considering whether or not to provide some sort of relief package to those retailers to help compensate for their losses.
Not surprisingly, the absence of China’s only legal form of gambling ha caused a spike in visits to unlicensed, offshore gambling sites. That has, in turn, caused Chinese officials to tighten their filters, excluding foreign gaming sites from their citizens.
So far, there’s no word on when lottery sales will continue.