China Lottery

When the draws take place

Double Color Ball is drawn three times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday evenings (around 9:15 p.m. China Standard Time), with the draw shown on television. Results are published the same night through official channels.

How the game works

Each bet uses two sets of numbers. You choose 6 red ball numbers from 1 to 33, plus 1 blue ball number from 1 to 16. A single bet costs a flat ¥2 (about US$0.28) nationwide. You can pick your own numbers or have them randomly generated. To win the top prize you must match all six red numbers and the blue number.

There are six prize tiers in total. The first and second prizes are parimutuel, meaning they are shared from a pooled fund and vary from draw to draw, while the lower tiers pay fixed amounts. The jackpot rolls over when it is not won, but the amount any single bet can win in the first prize is capped at ¥5 million. A player who places several identical bets can therefore win that top amount more than once.

Odds and prizes

The odds of winning the top prize with a single bet are 1 in 17,721,088, while the overall chance of winning any prize is roughly 1 in 15.

Fixed lower-tier prizes are ¥3,000 for third prize, ¥200 for fourth, ¥10 for fifth and ¥5 for sixth. The first and second prizes depend on the size of the pool and the number of winners, with the second prize guaranteed to be at least ¥6,000.

Here is the full structure:

Because a single bet is capped at ¥5 million for the top prize, the eye-catching headline wins in China come from players who place many identical bets in one draw and win the jackpot on each of them. This has produced reported single-draw hauls well into the tens and even hundreds of millions of yuan.

Winners are generally not publicly identified. It is common practice for major winners to collect their cheques wearing costumes or masks to protect their identity, and their names are not released. As a result, China’s biggest winners remain anonymous to the public. (Specific record figures were not verified from an authoritative source for this guide and should be confirmed before publishing.)

China established its two state lotteries in the late 20th century: the Welfare Lottery in 1987 and the Sports Lottery in 1994. Double Color Ball launched nationwide in 2003, bringing earlier regional welfare-lottery games together into a single national game with one shared prize pool. It quickly became the country’s dominant lottery game and has remained so since.

The game is issued and managed by the China Welfare Lottery Issuance and Management Center, a body under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, with national lottery activity overseen at the government level by the Ministry of Finance.

Double Color Ball tickets are sold in person at the many licensed welfare-lottery sales outlets found across mainland China. You mark your numbers on a betting slip, or ask for a random selection, and pay ¥2 per bet.

Online sales of lottery tickets have been suspended in China for much of the past decade, so buying at a physical outlet is the standard route. Players must be adults.

How to claim a prize

Where you claim depends on the amount:

Up to ¥10,000: can be collected at a lottery sales outlet.
Above ¥10,000: claimed at a municipal or provincial welfare-lottery center, with the top prize handled at the provincial level.

The redemption period is 60 days from the day after the draw. Keep your ticket safe, as it is the proof of your win.

Taxes on winnings

China taxes larger lottery prizes. Any single prize of ¥10,000 or more is subject to 20% personal income tax, which is deducted when the prize is paid. Prizes below ¥10,000 are not taxed.

Can you stay anonymous?

In practice, yes. Chinese lottery winners are not publicly named, and the widely seen images of winners collecting giant cheques while dressed in cartoon costumes or masks reflect how seriously winner privacy is taken. Winners still have to identify themselves to lottery officials in order to claim, but their identity is not released to the public.