Jul. 19, 2012 (China Knowledge) - China saw its sales of lotteries grow 23.8% year on year to RMB 21.61 billion in June 2012, RMB 4.16 billion more than it realized in the same period of 2011, according to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Finance.

Last month, the sales of welfare lotteries grew 19.9% YoY to RMB 12.54 billion, and the sales of sports lotteries reached RMB 9.08 billion, reflecting a Y-o-Y increase of 29.8%.

In the first half of this year, the country's lottery sales increased 27.6% from a year earlier to RMB 129.06 billion, comprising of RMB 75.2 billion in welfare lotteries and RMB 53.86 billion in sports lotteries, up 27.5% and 27.8% YoY, respectively.

From January to June this year, Jiangsu Province ranked first in the lottery market with a total sale of RMB 15.56 billion, surged 53.3% YoY, followed by Guangdong Province of RMB 13.31 billion and Shandong Province of RMB 11.28 billion.