One can dream: Chinese youth snap up lottery scratch cards

Difficult job market, uncertain economic prospects fuel demand

- Joyce ZK Lim

Lottery scratch cards, which offer players a chance to win over one million yuan (S$190,000) for a modest outlay, have been selling at record high volumes in China since the Covid-19 pandemic.

They have grown so popular that the state-regulated supply can hardly keep up with demand. Since April, scratch card shortages have made local headlines as lottery stores across the country ran out of stock for days at a time.

"China Red", "Joyful Encounter" and "Good Luck Tenfold" were among the auspiciously named scratch cards, mostly priced between five yuan and 50 yuan, that have been missing from store shelves.

Fuelling the scratch card boom are young people, who have embraced what is often seen as an older person's game.

Amid a challenging job market and uncertain economic prospects, Chinese youth have turned to the lottery for some combination of a fun pastime, a respite from the rat race, and even a shot at an overnight windfall.

"Who knows, if you win a big prize you won't have to work any more," tech company employee Huang Yuxin, 26, told The Straits Times.

The game is simple and gratification is instant. Players buy a card, scratch off the surface, then follow the written instructions usually some variation on searching for a specific symbol or number to determine if they have won something.

Most of the time, they get nothing. In the rarest of cases, they can win upwards of one million yuan.