For an individual, a small lottery ticket might bring good luck. For a country, millions of lottery tickets mean vital support to social welfare development.

In the next five years, China's welfare lottery is expected to play a bigger role in pooling money for charitable causes.

According to China Welfare Lottery Issuing Centre, in the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-10), lottery sales will hit at least 250 billion yuan (US$31 billion), maintaining an annual increase of 10 per cent.

As 35 percent of ticket sales go to charitable causes in line with regulations, more than 87.5 billion yuan (US$11 billion) will be contributed to helping groups in need.

This goal doubles the achievements of the past five years. During the period of the 10th Five-Year Plan period (2001-05), China in total issued 114.5 billion yuan (US$14 billion) of welfare lottery proceeds, among which 40 billion yuan (US$5 billion) went to the country's charities, mainly the Starlight Project and Tomorrow Project, run by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

According to the Starlight Project, which cares for elderly Chinese, more than 32,000 community welfare service centers for seniors have been established using lottery money.

The Tomorrow Project has supported more than 13,000 disabled children in undergoing operations.

"With the development of online lottery sales, the cost of lottery issuing has been reduced from 20 percent to 15 percent of the total sales," said He Yi, director of the Information Office of the China Welfare Lottery Issuing Centre. The remaining 50 per cent is used as prize money.

"Annual sales witnessed a growth of 40 per cent from 8.7 billion (US$1.1 billion) in 2000 to 41.1 billion (US$5.1 billion) in 2005," He said. "That indicates that the welfare lottery enjoys high regard among the public."

The establishment of a credit system has been the key step to cultivating the competitiveness of the welfare lottery, according to He.

(China Daily January 18, 2006)