Residents offer several explanations for the craze. Life is not as hard as elsewhere. People love to gamble. We have been busy trading stocks for the past 10 years and turnover is high. Keen interest by local newspapers and television, which report every move in the lottery, also stokes public enthusiasm.
Poverty is another reason.
As the provincial capital and centre of a rich farming area, Chengdu is the most prosperous city in Sichuan but lags behind Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and the rich cities of the east. For thousands of laid-off workers, day labourers and retired people, the lottery offers the only hope of an escape from poverty. Zhang Guiquan, a scholar at the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, said the lottery was a good way to channel idle money into projects which the Government should be funding but could not for lack of capital. Chengdu people are idle and follow crazes in a herd . This is not such a good tradition.