China's lottery ticket sales in August hit a record high as people turned to gambling for hope in the face of a slowing economy and rising youth unemployment.
Sales jumped 53.6% from a year earlier, to 52.96 billion yuan ($7.25 billion), according to official data. This is the highest monthly sales figure for any month so far this year.
The surge in lottery ticket sales coincides with months of gloomy economic data, including a record high youth unemployment rate of 21.3% in June.
Some social media commentators have linked the sharp rise in lottery sales to young people's deepening economic worries. They point to the fact that young people are more likely to win a large sum of money in the lottery than they are to earn it through work.
The government's statistics bureau has abruptly stopped publishing youth unemployment data, triggering a wave of social media criticism.
Jobless graduates have been leaving cities that have traditionally provided a stepping stone to middle-class wealth, and social media has been flooded with videos of jobless university graduates visiting temples to seek the blessings of the gods.
One commentator on Weibo wrote that "the worse the economy is, the more lottery tickets will be sold."
The surge in lottery ticket sales is a worrying sign of the public's growing economic anxiety.
It suggests that many people are feeling increasingly desperate and are turning to gambling as a way to escape their financial problems.
