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On the second highest ranking lottery app “365 Lottery”, one function lets you place a bid on the World Cup winner and runner-up -- but today the app says “System upgrade, sale suspended.” (Picture: 365 Lottery)
AbacusTech

Betting on the World Cup online just got harder in China

Apps suspend World Cup gambling features

Apps
Xinmei Shen
Xinmei Shen
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This article originally appeared on ABACUS

China loves gambling, and gamblers love sports. So it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that gambling on the World Cup is a big deal in China.

A week into the 2018 World Cup, 5 of the top 10 free apps on the China App Store are lottery apps, which include a way for users to bet on matches with WeChat or Alipay.

But users noticed that the World Cup gambling functions were suddenly disabled this week, with notices saying either “system upgrade” or “sales suspended”.

None of the apps explicitly said that they had been banned, but Chinese media are pointing to a report by the Global Times as the reason. On Monday, the state media outlet slammed underground and online lotteries, calling them frauds.

On the second highest ranking lottery app “365 Lottery”, one function lets you place a bid on the World Cup winner and runner-up -- but today the app says “System upgrade, sale suspended.” (Picture: 365 Lottery)
Despite being the second biggest lottery market in the world, online lottery sales in China have been halted since 2015. Several government ministries jointly issued an announcement saying that unauthorized private online lottery operations had interfered the “healthy development” of the state’s lottery industry, which is supposed to serve a public welfare purpose.
State-run China Welfare Lottery told a Beijing newspaper that it never commissioned any online institution to sell lottery tickets, and that these apps are operating against regulations.
Now gamblers are now moving to social media chat groups where hosts continue to post sports lottery information, another Beijing newspaper reported.

But they might have a bigger problem to deal with: The matches themselves have been harder to predict than most tournaments, with plenty of unexpected results. And that’s leading to a string of videos on Weibo of Chinese gamblers taking their frustration out on their TVs -- or in this guy’s case, trying to:

China’s internet lights up as Russia crush Saudi Arabia in World Cup opener

For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters, subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report. Also roam China Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus.

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