Every nation seems to have a lottery for their citizens. Dating back to ancient eras, such as China, Greece, and Rome, the powers-that-be would hold prize drawings for their citizens. Various forms of raffles would take place, mostly to prevent upheaval by and large.

Lotteries have grown since then, and we now see them scattered all over the world. The Chinese, in particular, hold their social welfare lottery. This lottery originated from prize-associated fundraising activities which were organized by the civil affairs department as a particular means of performing social relief work.

It was urbanized from conventional charitable fundraising under the socialism market economy conditions. The total number of welfare lottery tickets sold was valued at 114.5 billion during the period of “ten 5-year plans.” And this helped to raise more than 40-billion in funding for the country. The money went to caring for the elderly, disabled, helping orphans, and attempting to alleviate poverty.

China, contrary to popular belief, has a very long history of performing charitable acts for its less fortunate. However, since the People's Republic of China formed, the nongovernment charitable activities in China had almost stopped until the 1980s.

China even went so far as to reword their literature so word and phrases like “charity” and charitable act” were rephrased. The Social Welfare Lottery was introduced in 1987, but it took a while to catch on due to the changed way of thinking. The charity mindset was partially restored in the 1990s.

The China Charity Federation and many other provincial or city charity associations were formed during the period. They were changing along with the social and economic development. By the end of 1999, over 39-billion Yuan (4-billion US) worth of lottery tickets had been sold since the welfare lottery was introduced.

The lottery was serving its purpose. Not only was money being collected to help the less fortunate, but the lottery had paid out over 11-billion, and 1.5-billion has been turned to the state for disaster relief, and 8-billion has been spend on welfare works.

The Social Welfare Lottery has been a major deciding factor in preventing the country's public welfare system from falling behind its fast economic pace. Well over 80,000 welfare projects have been established throughout the country. The Ministry of Civil Affairs collects a small percentage of the lottery sales for special funding, which has financed the rebuilding of over 100 children's institutions and treated thousands of disabled children.

The lottery covers over 90% of the country and employs over 80,000 people. Not only does the lottery give someone a shot at being rich, but it gives thousands and thousands of people brand new hope. There's no better way to find funding of this sort. As we see in countries like the U.S., individual states' lotteries help build roads, schools, hospitals, etc. By funneling the money in and then spreading it around, great things can be accomplished. No one wins with greed, as the 1980s taught the Chinese people.