Chinese Bettors Wagered $11.6 Billion Through State Lottery During FIFA World Cup

Chinese bettors wagered roughly 83.3 billion yuan, or about $11.6 billion, through the state-run China Sports Lottery over the six weeks of the FIFA World Cup, averaging nearly $2 billion in weekly turnover even though the men’s national team failed to qualify for the tournament. State broadcaster CCTV reported the figures, framing the World Cup as one of the biggest legal betting events in the country’s history.

The tournament ran from June 8 through the eve of the final on July 19, and weekly sales climbed steadily before tapering off in the closing week. Turnover started at roughly 6.87 billion yuan ($956 million) in the opening week, then more than doubled to 15.15 billion yuan the following week and stayed above 15 billion yuan for four straight weeks before settling at 10.98 billion yuan during the week of the final. The World Cup total equaled nearly 20% of everything the Sports Lottery generated in all of 2025, a striking share for a single sporting event.

Jingcai Football Drives the Numbers

Most of that action ran through Jingcai Football, the lottery’s dedicated football betting product, which lets customers wager on match winners, point spreads, correct scores and other outcomes. Unlike commercial sportsbooks that set their own lines and odds, China’s sports betting market is operated exclusively by the state, which determines which matches are offered and how payouts are structured. The lottery’s overall return-to-player rate sits at about 73%, notably lower than the payout rates typical of commercial sportsbooks in regulated markets like the United States.

The appetite for legal wagering came even as China’s illegal betting market continues to dwarf its legal one. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates China’s underground gambling market, which includes offshore sportsbooks, unlicensed bookmakers and online agents targeting Chinese customers, exceeds $145 billion annually. That suggests the true amount wagered on the World Cup by Chinese bettors was likely far higher than the official lottery figures indicate.

Record Viewership, No Team on the Pitch

CCTV’s World Cup coverage also drew massive audiences, with the broadcaster reporting more than 70 billion cumulative cross-media views by the eve of the final. The final between Argentina and Spain alone pulled a cumulative audience of 282 million viewers, with peak real-time viewership hitting 41.23 million, according to CCTV. Those numbers reflect cumulative views across television and digital platforms rather than unique viewers, but they underline how thoroughly the tournament captured national attention despite the host of the six-team qualifying group in which China finished fifth, a stretch that included a 7-0 loss to Japan.

China has qualified for the World Cup only once, back in 2002, a fact that stands in sharp contrast to President Xi Jinping’s 2015 pledge to turn the country into a football superpower capable of hosting and winning the tournament. More than a decade of heavy investment in the sport has yet to translate into results on the field, even as fans’ willingness to bet on other nations’ matches keeps climbing. The gap between spectator enthusiasm and on-pitch performance has become one of the more curious storylines to come out of this World Cup cycle, and it’s one likely to persist as China continues investing in football infrastructure while its national team searches for its next qualification.