The online sale of lottery tickets was banned yesterday by a circular jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the General Administration of Sports.

Telecommunications regulators will punish those caught selling tickets online and violators could face prosecution.

Wang Xuehong, head of Peking University's research institute of the lottery, said online sales of lottery tickets pose many problems because it is difficult for buyers to distinguish legal websites from illegal ones.

"It's impossible to know whether a website will actually buy lottery tickets for people after they hand over their money," Wang said.

He said such websites are also difficult to regulate.

Private operators have been caught masquerading as State-run lotteries on the Internet and some websites have provided illegal channels for gambling on sports and the underground Mark Six.

The ban is one of several steps that have been taken to crack down on lottery fraud and the malpractice that has haunted the lottery industry.

Some 363 billion yuan ($49 billion) worth of lottery tickets were sold in 2006.

Last month, the Legislative Affairs Office (LAO) of the State Council said the first regulations for the fast-growing lottery industry will be issued this year to stamp out fraud, which has become increasingly serious since the first lottery was held in the country two decades ago.

Legislators will draw on the experience of other countries and regions when drafting the regulations, which will cover distribution, sales, announcement of results and management of funds, Ding Feng, deputy head of the LAO's department of political science and law, labor, social security and legislative affairs, said.

"Other countries and regions put laws in place before they started holding draws. China did the opposite," he said.

"The lack of laws and regulations has become a significant factor impeding the sound development of the industry."

A provisional regulation governing the distribution and sale of tickets, issued by the Ministry of Finance in 2002, is the industry's only rule.

The authorities started work on a national regulation more than a decade ago, but divisions between different government departments have hampered its implementation.

Fraud and malpractice have become regular occurrences in the absence of formal regulations.

In November, a 36-year-old lottery ticket vendor in Anshan, Heilongjiang Province, was jailed for life for taking advantage of a flaw in the Welfare Lottery "3D" system, allowing him to rake in 28 million yuan in lottery winnings.

In 2004, several people were jailed for manipulating a scratch-and-win sports lottery in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. The incident involved a ticket contractor cheating his way to the top prizes by marking tickets and employing four people to falsely claim the prizes.

（Xinhua /China Daily）

Lottery
In the last decades, the development of market oriented economy has brought a large number of newly emerging things into our daily life. Yet when it comes to one of these new things lottery, welfare lottery in particular, some people believe that it creates a good social atmosphere while others argue that the opposite is true. There is probably a little bit of truth in both statements. But in recent years, lottery has done a lot to support the view that it does more good than harm.
On one hand, welfare lottery encourages people to do small kindness for the welfare of others as well as for the profit of oneself. When we read the daily newspapers, we are frequently appraised of the "Big Kindness" performed by well-to-do philanthropists who donate large sums of money for the establishment of schools, libraries, free hospitals for the poor, orphanages,and the like. These, of course, are laudable acts of charity that deserve wide public acclaim. But in my estimation, not all the people have the financial ability to support these "Big Kindness",and those many minor acts of kindness performed daily in different situations by public minded citizens who receive no recognition or praise from the mass media are equally commendable.Similarly, welfare lottery provide the majority of people a chance to perform this kind of small kindness.
On the other hand, in a large city like Shanghai, where the general tendency of the people is "to look out only for one’s own", the atmosphere is cold and miserable for those unable to keep up with the rapid pace of competitions. By launching a personal campaign such as welfare lottery, we can try to remedy the present situation and to make our society a much better place to live in.
However, every coin has two sides. Lottery, inevitably,has some side effects. As to the general criticism that it encourages some people’s opportunistic attitudes and makes them unwilling to make a living by finding a job, I believe that the tax system in our society will keep the necessary balance between the poor and the rich, thus maintains the stability and unity of our country.
Recognition of a problem is the first step toward its solution. Since we are now generally aware of the advantages and disadvantages of lottery, it seems necessary that we improve this scheme to meet the public needs. If we are to succeed as a society in 21st century, a better society atmosphere should be created.

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