City’s latest big lottery win not down to luck?

Another large lottery prize in Beijing has triggered public suspicion about potentially rigged tickets, after the lottery administration's refusal to reveal details of the process of choosing the winning numbers.

Last Sunday, two ticket buyers shared another gigantic prize of 20.13 million yuan ($3 million) after buying tickets at a retailer on the West Fourth Ring Road, Haidian district.

On June 12, the biggest single lottery prize in China, 570 million yuan, was won by a ticket buyer in Sanlitun, Chaoyang district. Nine days later, the Beijing Welfare Lottery Center announced an anonymous man had claimed the cash.

"It's not that we want to unmask the personal information of the winner, but refusing to explain anything about the procedure of the draw to the public is very dubious," said a regular lottery ticket buyer, surnamed Zhu, at the Sanlitun ticket outlet.

The lottery center has been criticized by residents after its refusal to answer media enquiries regarding the recent slew of large prizes in the same city, leaving it open to accusations of a lack of transparency.　

Calls to the center earlier this month and Thursday received the same reply; "the center has no tradition or obligation to answer any questions regarding the lottery."

"People have doubts for a reason," said Chen Haiping, professor of the Lottery Research Center at Beijing Normal University.

Scandals have previously occurred in the State-run lottery industry, including high-profile corruption cases.

In 2004, Jia Anqing, the former director of Shaanxi Sports Lottery Administration Center, was sentenced to 13 years for "accepting bribes and abuse of authority," after he took cash from three others who conspired to fix the winning numbers.

In 2009, a welfare lottery prize of 33.05 million yuan sold in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, resulted from a local technology company hacking into the system.

"Previous scandals have made the public credibility of the lottery administration hit a record low. The center should consider opening up to explain the basics for a change," said Chen.