Young people who did not want to get involved in work, rolled up the lottery
Author | Liu Chezi
Edit | Yan Fei
Title Map |《Time and Space Cohabitation》
Retaliatory consumption, where is it strongest? In addition to catering, there are also lotteries.
According to data released by the Ministry of Finance, in April 2023, a total of 50.326 billion yuan of lottery tickets were sold nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 19.254 billion yuan, an increase of 62%. From the first quarter, the cumulative sales of lottery tickets nationwide reached 175.150 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 49.3%, almost half of the increase, showing unprecedented popularity.
In front of the lottery booth, it was crowded with people. (Photo/Visual China)
Spring is coming, people stand up from the "lying flat", special forces flow, go to the temple to burn incense, go to Zibo to eat barbecue, turn around and walk to the lucky lottery shop or lottery self-service machine in the streets and alleys, with an active attitude, to welcome the possible little luck in life.
Buying lottery tickets in retaliation
Xiaolong, a sea citizen, found that at the entrance of the shopping mall that he frequented, the originally abandoned pavilion lights were on again. He tensed for a few seconds, fixed his eyes, and the small pavilion turned into a welfare lottery station. The big red fluorescent blessing advertisement made the pavilion more joyful.
In early May 2023, the nucleic acid kiosk on the main entrance square of Shanghai Songjiang Mall was first transformed into a lottery kiosk. The neon lights of Shanghai elements are especially shining at night, attracting many people to stop and even join in.
A newly renovated lottery pavilion in Chongqing. (Photo/Visual China)
In recent years, lottery seems to be growing in popularity among young people, and sports lottery has also evolved with the times, catering to the preferences of young people and changing the original appearance. Since 2021, China Sports Lottery has begun to actively expand channels, change its image, and launch trendy stores in shopping malls in various cities.
In a day when everyone is on the go, what could be more desirable than selling "lucky"?
Combined with the channel characteristics of commercial complexes, Sports Lottery has launched "a lucky and fun store" across the country. In the mall, the store called "Lucky" is surrounded by white and red neon balloons, which looks like a trendy store from a distance. Perhaps inspired by the "blind box" trend in the previous two years, the welfare lottery station has also set up vending machines that can be operated by touch-screen operations, choose your own numbers, and buy Super Lotto and scratch cards.
A lucky and fun shop. (Photo/@公益体彩)
In mid-April this year, an activity with the theme of "Sports Lottery Happy Occupation Plan" was launched in various business districts across the country, and the standard configuration for young people to check in was no longer milk tea + dolls, but milk tea + lottery.
However, young people who buy lottery tickets have long been dismissive of the behavior of "biaozi" who are trying to study numbers and stick to a certain string of numbers, and the sales growth of simple guessing lottery tickets and instant lottery tickets is the leader.
In the first four months of this year, the sales of guessing lottery tickets were 81.435 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 122.1%, and the sales of instant lottery tickets were 30.426 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.4%.
The life coach said, "Act first, you can solve 80% of life's problems", so the young people took action - buy scratch music and take the power of small luck into their own hands.
During the lunch break on weekdays, a welfare café in a shopping mall in Guangzhou. (Photo/Photo by New Weekly)
The face value of scratch music generally ranges from 10 yuan to 20 yuan. There are many card faces, but they are all the same. Cards generally give a few prescribed numbers or patterns, as long as the target number or pattern is scratched, it is considered to be a winner.
Compared to buying a lottery ticket that still needs to wait for the draw, the scratch draw is simple and crude, and when the gray ink on the card is quickly pushed away, the answer is immediately revealed, and the winning lottery is immediately given money.
In the fragmented, fast-paced life, the speed of Internet speed is getting faster and faster, the speed of smartphone input-feedback is amazingly fast, no one can bear the slowness, any lag will be immediately quit, so even if you buy a lottery ticket, you must do it at a fast pace.
Scrape off that layer of gray ink, it only takes 20 seconds, and you can get timely feedback. Whether you win the lottery or not, through the ritualistic act of buying and scraping, the psychological stimulation has been achieved.
Scratch cards are addictive. (Photo/Screenshot of Station B)
In fact, buying lottery tickets shares the same psychological basis as various current fast consumption behaviors, they are all psychological stimulation experiences that can be obtained for a small amount of money. In the kaleidoscope of consumption, desire is free, and the journey to desire only takes 10 yuan and 20 seconds.
On social media, this is infinitely magnified. On station B, scratch card videos often reach millions of views, and even robotic arm scratch prizes appear. On Little Red Book, scratch music has a wider use: work is not going well, buy a few scratches, and the mood is good; Boyfriend, girlfriend birthday, send a bouquet of scratch music to scratch, the other party is often excited like a child.
Give away lottery tickets, give people lucky. (Photo/Little Red Book)
Wander between temples and fukusai shops
Although young people buy lottery tickets in pursuit of fast-paced and immediate feedback, they are unobtrusively combined with Buddhist values.
In the Xiaohongshu with a strong check-in culture, search for keywords such as "lottery" and "scratch music", and the first thing that appears is various "what if you win 10 million" content.
In these notes, people carefully share the precautions and the prize process, and truly imagine: "Can I get money if I win?" How do I get my money? How to spend the money? "Whether you can win the lottery or not is secondary.
Such experience sharing posts were constantly collected and liked, and formations began to appear in the comment area: "Brush to use, this year to buy must win" "Accept the jackpot, use it immediately"... From the perspective of metaphysical logic, the more people collect this post, the better the luck seems to be.
What should I do after winning 10 million yuan? (Photo/Screenshot of Little Red Book)
The essence of winning a lottery is a matter of probability. The always cautious British published a book called "The Difference of One Thought", which mainly explored the difference between probability and probability. An event with an almost zero probability of occurrence, the probability of which consists of "yes" and "no", feels almost half and half.
"Numbers and probabilities present the final result... But life is a labyrinth built with stories", the problem is that no matter how low the probability, the story is based on people's imagination, emotions and feelings, how rich the imagination, how vast the space of the story.
People who went to the temple to pray for incense made a thousand and one wishes, one of which was about winning the lottery. Even, they went directly to the temple with a pile of lottery tickets, worshiped religiously first, and then followed the metaphysical tradition of the Chaoshan people, took the lottery ticket and circled the incense altar a few times, even if it was illuminated by the gods, and finally scraped it with an ID card.
Among them, the famous Law of Attraction also plays a role. People believe that as long as you concentrate on thinking "I will win the lottery" for a short period of time, the energy of the whole universe will be attracted to themselves, and the things in their hearts will happen.
It is not for nothing that incense and scratching lottery tickets are popular among young people at almost the same time. As the embodiment of "luck", the lottery has long been merged into the vast metaphysical universe.
In fact, since lottery tickets began to become popular in the human world, people have studied the behavior of buying lottery tickets. At that time, it was generally believed that when people bought lottery tickets, they were more inclined to pay attention to the number of prizes rather than rational cost and benefit analysis, and lottery games with low prices and high winning surfaces were more attractive to lottery buyers.
But today, among young people, this conclusion is no longer universally applicable. Compared with digital lottery tickets with prizes of tens of millions of yuan, scratch cards have fewer rewards, but the face price may reach more than 5 times. So why are scratch cards popular? Perhaps, "tens of millions" is so far away, it is better to buy a scratch card of 10 yuan, and the probability of winning 50 yuan is greater.
In the "long season", Biaozi's dream has finally come true. (Photo/"The Long Season")
For this generation of young people, the meaning of the lottery has long been different.
In the 90s of the 20th century, in the embryonic period of the lottery, people faced a world of rapid economic development and rapid change of concepts, and the story of "giving it a shot, turning a bicycle into a motorcycle" was still fresh. But today, bright young people are no longer interested in success studies and have become cautious and rational.
Most people who scratch the card, only for a small consolation in a small luck, even if the scratch of 20 yuan will bring a good mood, if it is not scratched, it is fate has not arrived.
Proofreader: Huang Siyun
Operation: Hee-hee
Typesetting: Qiu Meiru